


Sex With Benefits

by solarfemm



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blowjobs, Bucky discovers feelings, Demi-Romantic Bucky Barnes, Dirty Talk, Do not post to another site, Drinking, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Fuckbuddies, Hospitalisation, M/M, Masturbation, Modern Bucky Barnes, Penetrative Sex, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, RHORI didn't prepare him for this, Sickness, Steve finally gets laid, handjobs, i havent abandoned this just bear with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2020-10-29 22:24:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20803958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarfemm/pseuds/solarfemm
Summary: Bucky makes a movement that encompasses theehness of banging dudes and hooking up with friends. “It’s not that big a deal. We’ll fuck, then eat pizza and watchReal Housewives of Rhode Island. You can be an honorary homo.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this was meant to be a short thing to fill my schedule of posting on the weekend but since bucky had to go and develop feelings while i was writing this it's now turning into a longer thing... even though i have another wip i'll be posting soon. this one is completely off the cuff so you'll be experiencing it in real time, whereas the other one is already mostly finished. let's see which one turns out better hey
> 
> beta’d as always by the inimitable hilarityplease

Steve’s a great guy. Scratch that, Steve’s a fantastic guy. He’s got an unwavering moral compass and once he’s made a friend he keeps them. That’s why he and Bucky have been friends for over twenty years. Bucky loves the guy, for real, but he will not _shut the fuck up_.

“Three years, two months, twelve days, and counting,” Steve says, looking down at his phone, as if he has it marked on a calendar. He doesn’t, it’s just his ridiculously good memory, but it doesn’t make Bucky want to give him a noogie any less. This whole situation would be absolutely hilarious if Steve didn’t insist on making it Bucky’s business as well by reminding him about it every twenty minutes. “That’s how long I’ve gone without sex.”

“Then get on Tinder and find someone to have sex with,” Bucky says. He’s on his sixth beer, he’s relaxing watching _Big Little Lies_, and he’s not in the mood for Steve’s rain cloud of despair settling over them in them in their living room. 

“You know what’s the worst part about it?” Steve asks, ignoring Bucky completely.

“Please, Steve, shut up.”

“It’s not just the not having sex, which is bad enough on it’s own—”

“For the love of God.”

“—it’s knowing that no one _wants_ to have sex with me. I mean, who would?” He indicates his body and then drops his hand into his lap, as if giving up. Steve talking like this makes Bucky really angry, because it’s not like Steve’s a hunk or anything—he’s a bit on the short side and he can never seem to pack any muscle on no matter how many times he and Bucky spar in the gym—but he’s not ugly. He’s got better skin than any guy Bucky’s ever been with and he’s really—cute. Not that Bucky would ever call Steve cute to his face, but he’s not bad looking. 

Bucky’s given up trying to reason with Steve on this, because it gets them both nowhere and seems to make Steve even less confident, but besides that Bucky’s not sure what he can do. He’s tried setting Steve up on dates with some of his friends, but he always strikes out with them, even the women that are a sure thing. Probably because he spends too much time talking about how Marx’s ideas weren’t radical enough. He has zero game, and it’s kind of pathetic.

He’s not sure why he says it, or why it’s this time in particular that the thought pops into his head, but it does and he runs with it.

“I’ll have sex with you,” Bucky says. He takes another sip of his beer while Steve fumbles for a response. 

“You’ll—what? Really?”

Bucky shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Why not? At least you’ll stop complaining. And you know I’m good at it so I’ll make it worth the trouble.” He winks at him, which makes Steve smile, a small victory.

“I’ve never hooked up with a guy before.” 

Bucky makes a movement that encompasses the _eh_ness of banging dudes and hooking up with friends. “It’s not that big a deal. We’ll fuck, then eat pizza and watch _Real Housewives of Rhode Island_. You can be an honorary homo.”

Steve laughs and Bucky feels warmth spread throughout his chest. He’s always had a soft spot for Steve, stitched him up enough times that Bucky should have an unofficial degree in nursing and dragged his drunk ass home from whatever trashy hetero bar he’s wandered off to on a Saturday night, but he knows Steve doesn’t have much self-esteem, at least in the looks department. Maybe once he has sex for the first time in three years, twelve months and two days he’ll have a confidence boost and get over himself.

“When?”

“You free tomorrow night?” Steve nods. “Great, tomorrow night. I’m training until 5, so I’ll be home after that to sex you up.” Steve laughs, and Bucky’s relieved he’s not taking it too seriously. “Now shut up and let me watch my show.”

Steve settles back into the couch, but he’s placated after that, and Bucky slowly gets more drunk, enjoying the sound of Steve not complaining.

~

Steve works from home, so he’s already there when Bucky gets in still in his gym clothes and covered in sweat.

The living room is set up with Steve’s paints and a huge canvas in the middle, half filled in already. Steve himself is dressed in his painting gear, a muscle tee and old sweatpants, and has paint in his hair and across his cheek. Once Bucky’s dropped his bag in his room he comes back to look over at Steve’s shoulder, but Steve stops working when he notices him standing there. 

Steve smiles up at him. “Hey, Buck.” Steve’s smile is a nice thing to come home to.

Bucky feels like ruffling Steve’s hair, but thinks better of it. It never goes down well when he does, because Steve hates when people treat him like a kid. “Hey, yourself.” They go through the perfunctory ten minutes of “how was your day”s where Steve tells him about this new paint he’s trying on a smaller project and Bucky rattles off a list of the worst things his assistant Kate has put in the microwave this week, and then an expectant silence elapses between them.

“You still want to have sex?” Bucky asks. Steve fidgets, and Bucky covers himself. “Because if you don’t want to, we don’t have to.”

“No, I do want to. I was just wondering—how, exactly?”

“We don’t have to do anything penetrative, if you’re worried about that.” Bucky watches Steve relax a little. “There’s plenty of other stuff we can do.”

Steve looks reassured at that, and nods determinedly. “I’ll go get cleaned up.”

“Yeah, me too.” Bucky doesn’t make a move to go, but pretends he’s looking at Steve’s painting as Steve gets up and leaves for his bedroom. He’s feeling a little keyed up, not just from the workout, and not from the thought of sex, but from the thought of sex _with Steve_. 

Is it wrong of him to be looking forward to this? He’s been with straight guys before, so he’s not sure what exactly about this is thrilling to him, but maybe because they’ve been friends for so long they’ve shared almost everything, and now they’ll be sharing another thing. 

The sound of Steve’s shower running pulls him out of his thoughts and he rushes off to get into his own. He thinks about the pre-sex rituals he usually does—cleansing, using his dildo, using argan oil, spraying on his Armani cologne—and how they don’t apply in this situation. Steve’s not going to care what he smells like, because Bucky doesn’t need to make a good impression. This isn’t some guy he’s been sexting on WhatsApp for the past month, failing to get a date with him between their conflicting schedules; it’s Steve, Bucky’s best friend, the best guy in the world. 

But maybe, also, because it’s Steve, Bucky does want to make a good impression. Steve’s remarked on how many guys breeze through their apartment on a monthly basis and how they all seem to leave satisfied, so Bucky has a reputation to uphold. He doesn’t just want to fuck Steve so he’ll have nothing to complain about; he wants to make it good for him, show him that sex can be fun and casual and not necessarily a pre-cursor to a relationship he gets stuck in because he doesn’t know how to say no and thinks it’s the best he’ll ever get. Bucky can do that for him. He wants to do that for him.

He’s toweling his hair dry in his ensuite when Steve knocks on his open door, and Bucky looks over at him to find him looking slightly nervous. He’s half dressed in his only pair of sweats and Bucky’s still naked, so maybe it’s a little confronting for him. 

“Oh, hey, sorry, I was going to get dressed.”

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Steve cracks a smile and Bucky laughs, chucks the towel over the shower door and makes his way into the bedroom. 

“Come on, punk.” He pulls Steve onto the bed with him, arranging him in the most comfortable position for them to start making out before they lead into the good stuff. Bucky brushes Steve’s bangs off his face, the way Steve does as a nervous habit, and gives him a smile that tells him it’s all going to be okay. Steve’s skin is red from the shower and he’s radiating heat. “If there’s anything you don’t like, just tell me, okay? I’ll go slow.”

Steve returns the smile, and Bucky is buffeted by the trust Steve has in him, that of all the guys Steve could go for, it’s Bucky who got through to him. Sex with men is easy, and if Steve wanted to, with a little bit of self-confidence, he could hook up with any guy he meets at a bar. He’s never expressed any interest to, and Bucky’s never pushed the idea, but now presented with the opportunity he’s said yes. If he knew it was going to be so easy to stop Steve moaning about his lack of sex life, Bucky would have done this a lot sooner.

“You gonna kiss me or what, jerk?” Steve says, with a spark of mischief in his eyes, and Bucky fits a hand around his jaw to pull him close. Steve tastes like toothpaste with an underlying hint of the cheap, shitty coffee he loves so much, but somehow Bucky doesn’t mind it. He’s a good kisser, too, letting Bucky set the pace, their noses bumping, tongues teasing until Steve sucks on Bucky’s and the heat in the room ramps up by a few degrees. 

Bucky doesn’t have time to wonder why this is so much hotter than any other make out session he’s had before Steve bites his lip and he lets out an embarrassing noise.

Steve pulls back immediately. “Sorry, sorry. Did that hurt?” His eyes are wide and he’s out of breath, chest rising and falling sharply.

Bucky shakes his head. “No, it was—really hot, actually.”

His eyebrows shoot up but Bucky kisses him again before Steve can ruin the mood by saying something Steve-esque, and it’s not long before Bucky starts to lose himself in it a little, running his hands over Steve’s neck and shoulders and feeling a sense of relief when Steve touches him in turn, a hand on Bucky’s waist, his strong grip. 

“You don’t have to be afraid to touch me,” Bucky says, selfishly, kissing down Steve’s jaw and throat. 

“I know,” Steve says, huffing it out. He always hates it when people tell him what to do. The best way is to phrase it as a challenge, and he’ll do it just to prove he can. He reaches his hand up to cup the back of Bucky’s head and lets his fingers trail down Bucky’s hip to his thigh. It feels so good, a teasing touch that drives Bucky wild, his cock stirring where it’s resting on his thigh. He wants Steve to touch him there, but he won’t say that in case it scares him off. Steve hates it when people are delicate with him, but Bucky can’t help it; Steve is precious to him, and must be handled carefully.

Bucky continues kissing his neck, nipping at the skin just softly enough for Steve to feel it, but when he bites down a little harder Steve’s hand in his hair tightens and Bucky gasps at the sudden pain. Oh, so they both like that, then. He does it again, and Steve moans. The sound makes Bucky ravenous. He’s desperate to hear what other sounds Steve makes when Bucky does the right thing, so he pushes Steve back on the bed until he’s laying down, Bucky getting between his thighs, and proceeds to take his time taking Steve apart.

He uses his hands for soft touches to make Steve feel good, kissing and biting down Steve’s skinny chest, down his stomach, licking into Steve’s belly button, until he gets to the waistband of his sweats. They come down easy, Steve lifting his hips at Bucky’s urging to slide them down, but not off, until his cock springs free. 

Ah oh, what a sight it is. Nestled in a patch of dark hair, thick, hard, curved, flushed red, leaking already—Bucky wants his lips on it, wants to feel the heft of it on his tongue, pushing into his mouth, down his throat. Guys keep telling him he’s a dirty cockslut, and he’s always figured it’s true; he loves sucking dick, loves to taste and lick and smell them, loves the smooth silkiness of them in his hand and mouth. He gets off on it. And he’s good at it, too. Never leaves anyone unsatisfied. He’s going to make sure Steve isn’t an exception.

“Holy cow,” Bucky says, and looks up with a grin on his face to see Steve blushing furiously. “You were carrying this thing around the whole time and didn’t tell me?”

“Quit teasing me, Buck.” Steve hides his face in his hands, but Bucky reaches up to pull them away.

“I’m serious, Steve. You have a fantastic dick. It would be a pleasure to suck it.”

Steve, still blushing, furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “You really like that?”

“Hell yeah, I do. Don’t you like getting your dick sucked?”

“Sure, I do. But—”

“Come on,” Bucky nags, because he’s going a little loose at the edges here, “I love it, you love it, let’s get this show on the road.”

Steve throws his hands up, says, “Alright,” and that’s all Bucky needs. 

He takes Steve’s dick in hand and starts to stroke, slowly at first, getting used to it, getting Steve used to it after so long of no one touching him, before he licks lightly at the head, teasing the slit and getting a taste of him. Steve throws his head back and he swears, which Bucky takes as encouragement to do it again, suckling lightly on the head this time while Steve drops back onto the mattress and slowly loses it above him.

“Fuck, fuck, oh god,” Steve says, and Bucky smiles. 

He tastes good, too. Not too salty, but a flavor that hits Bucky’s palette right. He suckles on the head for a bit longer, slowly jacking the shaft, before sinking lower. Steve’s hands are clenching on the mattress beside Bucky’s head so he takes one and puts it in his hair, hoping Steve will get the idea, and he does, tangling his fingers and clenching them when Bucky starts to suck him. 

The noises Steve makes turn Bucky on more, more than he usually is just from blowing someone, and encourage him to pull more noises out of Steve, or make him lose it completely. He wants to see Steve undone, wants to hear him moan Bucky’s name, wants to swallow everything he has to offer. It’s not unlike how he is with other guys, but it’s still different. With other guys, it's not usually this intense, the need isn’t usually this strong, and maybe it’s what’s been missing from Bucky’s life: not just intensity, but passion.

He reaches down to fondle Steve’s sack, to get him more worked up than he already is. He pulls back just to bob down, working up a rhythm that has Steve swearing and moaning, rolling his hips up as Bucky sinks down, his cock filling up Bucky’s throat. Bucky’s got his other hand on his own cock, not jacking himself off but touching himself enough that he could get off on this. 

“I’m gonna come,” Steve says, then, “Shit, Buck, I’m really gonna—” when Bucky doesn’t let up, just keeps sucking him until Steve is pulsing down Bucky’s throat with a cry, back bowing, fingers tugging at Bucky’s hair.

Bucky swallows most of it, feels some of it dribble into his beard, and licks up the rest as Steve’s cock goes soft. Steve is breathing hard and lets go of Bucky’s hair to run his fingers through his own, looking down at Bucky with an awe-struck expression, as if Bucky’s the first person to give him an orgasm like that. He probably is; Bucky is very good at what he does. 

He tucks Steve back into his sweats and smiles because he knows it. Steve sits up, running his thumb across Bucky’s cheekbone, a gesture far too intimate for what they just did, but Bucky doesn’t shy away. This is about Steve, and if Steve wants to touch him like Bucky’s the precious one, what’s he gonna do?

“Did you come?” Steve’s voice is slightly rough, and he clears his throat with a cough.

Bucky shakes his head. “Nah. Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. I’m fine.”

Steve gets a determined look about him, squaring his jaw like he always does when someone issues him a challenge, and Bucky regrets saying it. 

“Can I touch you?” Steve asks, his eyes blazing with purpose, and Bucky swallows his protests in the face of it. 

No, he wants to say. This is just a casual thing. If you touch me it’ll make this real. 

But he’s never been able to say no to Steve, so he nods his head, and lets Steve pull at him until he’s on the bed, half laying down so that Steve can lean over him, and get a hand on him, and kiss him.

Bucky’s so keyed up it doesn’t take much more than Steve stroking him a few times, the warmth spreading until his balls tighten and he comes all over his own stomach and Steve’s hand. He’s prepared for a good orgasm. He’s prepared for the absurdity of the situation to descend on him when it happens—but it doesn’t. What he’s not prepared for is the rush of affection he feels when Steve brings his hand up to his mouth and licks Bucky’s come off his finger, tasting it like a cheeky pinot gris, before he turns his heady gaze back to Bucky.

“Holy shit, Steve.” Bucky’s not sure exactly what he’s _holy shit_ing about, but it’s not something he has the mental or emotional capacity to examine right now.

“I was curious,” Steve says, and Bucky doesn’t get it, right then with his post-orgasm mind, what people don’t see in Steve. He’s funny, and nice, and maybe Bucky’s never seen him in the right light before but he is attractive. And that was definitely in the top five best orgasms of his life. 

A minute passes of them just catching their breath and looking at each other while Steve runs his fingers across Bucky’s chest, seeing each other in a new way, before Bucky can’t handle it anymore. He feels bare like an unhealed wound, and Steve’s just making it worse by not saying anything, just looking at Bucky like he’s seeing something in him he hasn’t before. Bucky clears his throat when the euphoria finally fades and swings his legs onto the floor. 

“I think I need another shower,” he says. He doesn’t want to look at Steve anymore, but why isn’t clear. “Hang on, I’ll get you a cloth.” He spends far too long in the bathroom washing his face with cold water, but he does eventually brave his bedroom again with a damp cloth for Steve to wipe himself down with. 

Steve smiles again, a soft smile like he’s grateful for Bucky doing a kind thing for him like bringing him a something to clean himself up with, but it feels like so much more than that, no matter how much Bucky wants to pretend like it isn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky still can't keep it in his pants and it's getting kind of embarrassing.

Bucky can’t stop thinking about it. The next day passes like a blur between meetings with clients and sketching out new designs for someone who ends up not liking them, and then he has to throw them out anyway, because no, it’s not a good idea to put faux leather walls in the baby’s room. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, considering he’s still designing a sex dungeon downstairs. Still, thinking about the night before is enough to put him on edge and make him think about his life in a way he hadn’t before.

He has a job he likes, hooks up enough, goes on enough dates, and makes enough money to afford fancy muffins from the bakery across the street, but the best part of his day is coming home to Steve painting or drawing in the living room, lit up by the evening sun that shines through their apartment window. Bucky earns enough to live on his own, but Steve doesn’t, and Bucky’s not going to do that to him. He’s never even considered it because he doesn’t want to think about coming home and not finding Steve there, despite how often he leaves his clothes lying around the living room and his art materials everywhere. 

He loves to spend time in their shared space chatting to Steve about everything, anything—the newest episodes of Succession, a word he learned from a podcast, some stupid shit a guy said to him on Grindr. It’s like a workout in the gym, but emotionally—it blows off steam, and Steve’s better than any boyfriend he’s ever had because he doesn’t demand anything of Bucky. If he didn’t have that, he doesn’t know what he’d do.

But now they’ve had sex, everything feels different. Steve hadn’t acted differently in the morning before Bucky left for work, but Bucky had felt something in himself, that need rearing its head again. He saw Steve stretching his wrists against the wall and felt the desire to push him up against it, kiss him breathless, stick a hand down Steve’s shorts and get him off just to hear the noises he makes and see his face this time. It’s not the horniest thought he’s ever had, and not the first horny thought he’s had about Steve before last night, but Bucky knows how to control himself—he just doesn’t always need to. 

As soon as he gets on the train he starts to dread going home. The stops tick by, tiny children wail, and his heart beat speeds up thinking of how Steve looks at him when he comes home—like he’s a different person each day and Steve has to figure out who that is. It makes Bucky feel bigger than he is that someone wants to know him like that, despite how he’s kind of an asshole and only really good at sex and matching color swatches. 

The thing is, he reminds himself on the subway, he doesn’t get feelings. Not for his hook ups, at least. He can’t even say he doesn’t get feelings for his relationships, because it never extends that far. Once a guy starts getting too attached—staying too long after breakfast, asking him out on dates that don’t end in sex, or once trying to get a family discount on his gym membership—Bucky breaks off contact. With a text, of course, not by ghosting. He’s not a heartless monster. 

Steve’s not home when he gets in, but it doesn’t make Bucky any more relieved. He thinks of downing a respectable amount of beer for a work night but doesn’t, instead opts for whatever episode of _Queer Eye_ he’s subejcting Steve to as recompense for leaving fish in the freezer so long it turned green. As soon as he sits on the couch he gets a whiff of Steve’s hair and the memory of Steve’s come fills his mouth again and all thoughts of having a chill night go out the window. And yep, he’s definitely got a hard-on now. 

It would be completely gross of him to whack off right there in the living room, no matter how strong Steve’s smell is here—anyway, he set the ground rule that first day they moved in, before Steve flipped him off and said, “As if I’d want to touch myself where you’ve been,” and Bucky laughed at the time, but it’s not a joke now. He can resist touching himself for all of the four seconds it takes to get to his bedroom, but before he goes he snags one of Steve’s sweaters and takes it with him. 

Once he’s there, a moment passes where he thinks seriously about whether he’s going to jerk it while sniffing an item of his roommate’s clothing, before his desperation wins out. He kicks his bedroom door shut behind him and falls onto the bed while fumbling with his slacks one-handed, managing to get them open enough to pull his cock out. Usually he likes to take his time and will either watch one of the videos he’s taken with any number of hookups who get off on having themselves filmed or read through his sexting history, but this time all he needs is Steve’s sweater and a hand on his dick. 

It takes two minutes tops of burying his face in the soft weave while he inhales the scent of Steve’s sweat, stroking his cock with only pre-come to smooth the way until his balls draw up so tight he thinks he’s going to shoot off onto the ceiling. Instead just gets himself on the chin and spends another two minutes trying to steady his breathing and feeling like he’s just run full sprint on the treadmill for half an hour. 

“Fuck,” he says to no one. Fuck to himself, maybe. Fuck to the fact that he’s now thinking about Steve in a sexual way, more than just a thought experiment, like, _what would it be like to fuck Steve? Probably weird_, because now he knows what it’s like to fuck Steve, and it wasn’t weird in a gross way. It’s weird in the way that Bucky can’t stop thinking about him at all. 

When he reaches for the tissues on his bedside table he realises there’s a line of jizz down the arm of Steve’s sweater, and panic overrides his post-orgasm haze. Shit. Shit, _shit_. It’s okay, Steve’s not here, he can shove it in the machine down the hall, after he puts his cock away and kicks off his pants. He grabs his hamper as well and hoofs it into the living room, only to realise too late that people are already there, and then he’s standing there in his underwear with a jizz-covered sweater that isn’t his while Steve and Steve’s buddy Sam, who has intimidatingly large muscles for a social worker but is one of the loveliest people Steve is friends with, are admiring Steve’s art work. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says as he glances up, and Bucky doesn’t even have time to feel good about the way Steve’s face lights up because he’s having a bit of a crisis.

“Hey, JB,” Sam says, with a small wave. 

“I was just doing some laundry,” Bucky says, too loudly. 

A moment passes of Steve and Sam staring at him while Bucky sweats under the scrutiny, and then Steve says. “Oh, hey, that’s my sweater,” and Bucky starts sweating more.

“Yeah, you left it in the living room. I was just going to wash it.”

“Cool. Can you wash the rest of it, too?” Steve starts picking up the items of clothing that are strewn around and carries them over to Bucky. When he gets there, there’s a small beat of Steve staring at Bucky, who is visibly freaking out, he knows it, oh god, his chin is starting to crust, Steve can tell, before Steve dumps his clothes on top of the sweater and says, “You look a little flushed.”

“I just got back from a run.” Bucky is still wearing his button down and loafers. He glances over at Sam, who is looking down, visibly trying not to laugh, and then back to Steve, who narrows his eyes.

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.”

“Alright then.”

“Alright.”

“Keep being weird.”

“I will.”

“Whatever.” Steve finally turns away and Bucky keeps holding his breath until he’s out of the apartment, down the hall, and in the laundry room. 

“Fuck,” he says again, really meaning it this time.

~

Bucky usually works Saturdays, and even though he’s thinking of taking this one off to sit in Central Park and think really hard about his life choices and how he’s never going to make them again, he decides to make up for the previous day’s lack of productivity.

Kate only works four days a week and never on weekends, so he doesn’t have to ignore her chatter, but she knows how to make coffee better than he does and answers his emails for him, so by lunchtime he’s under-caffeinated and has two dozen bullshit requests from people under qualified to write an email and he just wants to achieve something before the week is through. 

After spending an hour and a half trying to source batik fabric from a textile manufacturer in Bangladesh—the only kind his client will accept—he decides to pack it in for the day. A knock at the door pulls him out of his slump and he turns to see Steve, looking flushed and holding a bag with grease stains turning it brown. It’s only when he smells the burger that his stomach starts to rumble. 

“Brought you lunch,” Steve says. 

“I could kiss you,” Bucky says, and Steve laughs, walking inside the office. 

“You already have.”

Bucky feels his stomach twist in a way that has nothing to do with his hunger. “Well, maybe I could again.”

Steve rolls his eyes as if it’s some prank Bucky’s pulling on him and sets the bag down on the only clear patch of desk available. He’s pink from the sun and the midday heat, and Bucky feels both a protective urge to chide him about putting on sunscreen and also the desire to lick the spots where he’s burned. It overwhelms him so much that when Steve reaches into the bag, Bucky reaches out to grab his hand.

“What?” Steve looks at him like he’s lost it. “They’re good. I already ate mine.”

“No, I just—” Bucky racks his brain for something to say, but instead goes with his gut instinct, which is to pull Steve’s hand towards him, and by extension Steve. He takes it slow, giving Steve plenty of time to back away or pull his hand out of Bucky’s grasp, but he seems to get what Bucky wants and when Bucky leans down to kiss him, Steve kisses back.

It’s just as good as it was the first time—better maybe, because Bucky knows how good a kisser Steve is, and he gets what he is expecting. Steve takes Bucky’s face in his hands and Bucky has to bend over so much to kiss him it’s ridiculous, but it’s worth it, their kiss turning feral, Steve pushing Bucky around like it’s what he’s always wanted to do until Bucky falls into his office chair and Steve swings a leg over to sit in his lap.

They keep kissing, too gone already to stop this avalanche of desperation as they nip and bite at each other’s lips in between kissing. Steve tastes like burgers, and it tastes fucking great. 

“Yeah, fuck,” Bucky says, eloquently, going for Steve’s pants as Steve goes for his. It’s mostly a scramble of hands as they try to get each other’s pants open, until Bucky swats Steve’s away and gets it done himself. He’ll be damned if he’s outdone by Steven Grant Rogers, hair the colour of a gold-tinged iPhone and 110 pounds soaking wet, who has an uncanny ability to get into Bucky’s head and not leave for 20 years and counting. 

Steve makes a noise when Bucky gets a hand around him, a small _mmgh_ that goes straight to Bucky’s dick. Somehow Steve gets Bucky’s pants open and his dick out as well, and when he takes them both in hand Bucky loses the ability to breathe. 

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Steve says, unfairly composed when Bucky is barely holding it together. “Your mouth is so good. Best thing I’ve ever felt.”

Bucky lets out a moan as Steve tightens his grip. “Fuck off, Steve,” he says, meaning, _fuck me, Steve_. “I already know. Best mouth in the lower east side.”

“What, you shit where you eat?”

“I get around.”

Steve kisses him to shut him up. “You like that, then?” Steve asks after a minute. Maybe the idea has tripped him up, and Bucky loves that Steve’s caught unaware by him, that he’s not the only one floundering over a hookup, of all things. 

“Didn’t we already discuss this?” He goes back to attacking Steve’s mouth, but Steve seems to want to talk more than he wants to kiss Bucky or jerk him off, which is unfortunate because Bucky is never, ever fucking him after this, not when Steve is teasing him like a fish on a lure before he reels Bucky in. Bucky wouldn’t anyway, obviously, because the last thing he’d want to do is start a fling with his roommate and best friend of 20 years, get a fucking grip, Barnes. 

“I meant being told about it. It gets you hot, people saying you have a good mouth.”

It’s not a question and it’s not a lie; it does getting Bucky hot, and all he can do is wait until Steve twists his hand and Bucky lets out a soft mewl in answer. 

“I think you like hearing it,” Steve says, and he leans forward to breathe it into Bucky’s ear. “You like the attention, don’t you. You like the praise, and people wanting you so much they’d tell you.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He grits his teeth against the pleasure of Steve’s blood-warm dick against his own and Steve’s hand around him as he rips into the truth of who Bucky is. “Almost as good as hearing my own voice.”

“I wonder,” Steve muses, his breath hot, sticky, “if you’d like being told what to do as much as being told you’re a nasty little slut with a great ass.”

Bucky’s breath escapes him again in a rush, and it’s almost like being choked, except he doesn’t like being choked. He likes this, whatever is happening now; he likes the feel of Steve, the sound of his deep voice, the way he’s picking Bucky apart. 

Bucky gets his breath back eventually. “I do. It’s nice.”

Steve chuckles and it vibrates through him right into Bucky’s ear. “Yeah, you would like being bossed around. What would you do if I told you to get on your knees and suck my cock right now?”

“Oh, fuck.” Bucky feels his orgasm draw nearer with Steve licking into his ear with his hot, wet tongue. All this time Bucky’s hands have been on Steve’s hips, clenching the fabric of his capris, but he decides to do something with them to make Steve regret, or relish, doing this to him by thumbing over his nipples, and is rewarded by a sharp inhale. 

But Steve is not one to be outmatched. “Would you do it? Would you get on your knees and let me slip inside, fill up your throat, fuck your mouth? Huh, Buck?”

It’s the nickname that gets him, and he wishes it wasn’t because Steve calls him that a lot and now it’s sullied forever in a Pavlovian, Bucky-will-always-think-about-this-moment kind of way. Bucky comes in hot bursts over Steve’s hand and dick and his own shirt, his face tucked into Steve’s shoulder as he shakes through it. 

Okay, so maybe that’s number four of the best five orgasms of his life. He’s only dully aware of Steve jerking himself off for another minute before he comes too, sprinkling Bucky’s shirt and pants and making more of a mess of him. Bucky looks down between their bodies to see it, lets out a small “buh” in protest of Steve ruining his nicest shirt, until his brain clicks off entirely. 

Steve lifts his chin up to kiss him again and Bucky lets him, because even though he’s not allowed to develop feelings for what is turning out to be one of the best lays of his life, he is allowed to enjoy a little kissing. He fumbles blindy for a tissue or something and ends up grabbing a spare scrap of fabric to clean them up with, knocking several things over in the process, tucking themselves back in once he’s done. 

“Walk in Central Park?” Steve asks, as if Bucky is capable of higher brain function, getting off his lap and stretching his fingers. 

“I’m covered in jizz,” Bucky says, groaning. 

“What if I asked real nice?”

“Don’t do this to me,” Bucky pleads.

Steve laughs. “Okay, tough guy. Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”

Bucky’s not even mad about it, just swipes his bag and burger and lets Steve lock up after them. 

~

When they get in, Steve goes straight to his room for a nap, because time means nothing to him, and Bucky decides to do something he’s always putting off—excuses like “bad weather” and “it’s not a great time for me” and “I got a venereal disease and if I tell anyone about the state of my dick they’re never going to let me down so I have to deal with that before it falls off” always come to mind when he thinks of calling his sister, but he decides yes, today is the day.

Becca answers on the sixth ring, just long enough that Bucky could say she wasn’t around to hear it and hang up, but she does answer, and it’s with a fakely sweet, “Hello, James,” that makes him nervous. “What could possibly be the reason for calling? Did you need me to cyberstalk one of your lays and find out if he’s connected to the President’s impeachment?”

“No, of course not,” Bucky snaps, before his hackles fall. “No, sis, I don’t need you to do anything like that, I just wanted to see how you are.”

“Oh.” She takes a deep breath. “Well, Tommy’s losing his teeth, Alice learned her first swear word, and jack off Jessica at work keeps winning the World Series Square Pool.”

“No, I asked how you’re doing.”

Becca sighs. “I’m fine, I’m just dealing with a lot. It comes with the package deal of having kids.”

“Isn’t John meant to be helping with that?”

“No offence, but men can only be trusted with taking children to see movies beyond their maturity level and drinking enough beer to drown a sea captain.”

Bucky feels a prickle of anger for Becca. “That’s fucked, Becs. He should be pitching in. I wouldn’t let my wife struggle with all of that on her own. You know, if I was that way inclined.”

“Bucky, you hate kids.”

“I don’t _hate_ kids.”

“Great, you can babysit for me some time. How’s this Thursday? There’s a new Avatar movie out and I want to watch blue cat-aliens ponytail fucking.”

Bucky is so horrified by that sentence he agrees just to make her stop as she continues. “Yeah, okay, 5.30 after work, got it. Jesus Christ, Becs, stop talking about the ponytail fucking.”

He hangs up after a couple minutes, wondering what he’s gotten himself into and if it’s going to be as easy as putting the kids to bed at 6pm and falling asleep under the blanket their nana gave them when they were three but has ended up in Becca’s possession.

Bucky’s going to get that blanket back even if he has to steal it from under Becca’s nose.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventures in babysitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Of course" means "as you wish", just FYI.

Because Bucky is incapable of taking care of another living thing, because Steve loves kids, and because Bucky is the best friend Steve’s ever had, Bucky pulls Steve into babysitting with him. Steve loves to throw himself into any particularly dangerous situation, and what could be more dangerous than two grown men taking care of two six year olds? Especially when one of those adults has a deathwish shaped like every six-foot-four homophobe this side of the Brooklyn Bridge and the other hasn’t spend more than two hours with anyone who isn’t his assistant or his roommate in at least six months. 

“It’s an adventure,” Steve, who is up for pretty much anything at any time because he has nothing better to do, tells him as he parks the car in front of Becca’s house. 

“The adventure is two city boys getting lost in Sands Point, never to return. Seriously, I’m getting bougie all over me.”

“Oh sorry Mr. Interior Designer, that’s different from your upbringing how?”

“Well, now I get paid to tell people how to live instead of everyone else telling me how to live.”

Steve shoves him up the front steps amid Bucky’s laughter. Nothing’s changed about their friendship. They’re still best friends. They still bicker over Steve leaving his shit all over the apartment and which _Legally Blonde_ is better. They still split a pint of ice cream every week. The only difference is they’ve had sex twice. Bucky hasn’t brought it up, Steve hasn’t mentioned it, and they’ve gone about their business as usual. 

Except—Bucky’s stopped seeing other guys. It’s not like he’s _seeing_ Steve, but the need to hook up, pick up some guy at the gym or call one of his regulars, has abated since they had sex last week. However, that doesn’t mean Bucky’s sex drive has. He’s jerked off more times in the last few days than he has in months, because that’s what his life is like now: lusting after his best friend but unable to bring it up or make a move, another move, because what if the next time is the time that ruins them? 

Steve has already ruined him. Just because he’s stopped having sex with random guys doesn’t mean they’ve stopped being interested, but Bucky’s dick doesn’t respond to anyone else but Steve now—and that’s just pathetic. And now they’ve strapped in for another sexless night, this time watching Paw Patrol and eating the organic chocolate pudding cups Bucky knows Becca still buys, the ones that taste like heaven and sex rolled into one, and Bucky is _not_ going to make a move on Steve while his niblings sleep upstairs.

They let themselves in through the front door, almost tripping over a plastic car and several string worms, as the noise from the house comes at them like a wave. Becca’s got music on and is strutting around the kitchen in heels while Alice and Tommy scream and run around, and Bucky takes one look at the mess of the house and almost backtracks right out of there. Steve seems to have preempted this response and pushes him forward. 

“Hey sis,” Bucky says.

Becca turns as she’s putting her earring in. Her brown curls are everywhere, as usual, but she’s wearing a red dress that would make even Bucky look twice. “Thank god. The movie starts in twenty minutes and we still have to get tickets. John’s already waiting in the garage.”

“Nice to see you too.” 

“It’s good to see you, Bucky.” She gives him a kiss on the cheek, and then one for Steve as he says hi. “You too, Steve.” 

Bucky looks around the open space to find what looks like a furry roomba sitting on a dog bed. The dog blinks up at him through a mop of tan hair. “Are you feeding this dog or what?”

Becca scowls. “She’s pregnant, dingus. And her name is Boof. She was sick last night so just be careful with her.”

“What kind of a name is ‘Boof’?” 

The kids come zooming past, Alice chasing Tommy with what looks like a glob of mucus on a stick, and they don’t even stop to say hi, which—rude. They just run into Becca, Tommy squealing and trying to hide behind her while Alice shouts and tries to get him with the stick.

“The kids named her. Alice, Tommy, mommy and daddy are going out tonight, so you’ve got babysitters. You remember uncle Bucky and uncle Steve, right?”

They stop terrorizing each other enough to look up Bucky and Steve, all of them staring like it’s a showdown at high noon and they’ve got a score to settle.

Alice speaks first. “Who the fuck are you?”

“_Alice Mary Proctor_,” Becca starts, as Bucky and Steve burst out laughing, and it starts a shit storm that lasts about three minutes of Becca trying to keep her cool while Alice loses it and storms off to her room. Steve’s already on the floor with Tommy petting Boof while Bucky wipes tears from his eyes, and then Becca gives up with a list of instructions on how to look after the kids that Steve will remember and Bucky will disregard in favor of being the cool uncle who lets them stay up way past their bedtime.

Then she’s out the door in a flurry of movement and perfume. Bucky rubs his hands together. “All right, let’s watch some _American Horror Story_.”

Steve sets up _Poccoyo_ on the tv while Bucky serves up bowls of the spaghetti Becca left on the stove, and it’s eerily domestic eating with Steve and Tommy in a way Bucky is not disgusted by. Tommy gets sauce all over the couch but it’s made out of PVC and they wipe it off with a cloth, but he also gets it all over himself so they take him upstairs for a bath before he goes to bed. 

Steve is so naturally gifted with kids, helping Bucky bathe Tommy and actually listening when Tommy tells them about his favourite toys and the other kids at school even though Bucky can’t understand him, that it puts him in a new light. If Steve wants to have kids himself, he’s never mentioned it, but maybe he’ll find someone to settle down with first. 

The thought sits heavily in Bucky’s stomach like a stone, but it’s not like it has a right to, because Steve isn’t his boyfriend—they haven’t even been on a date—and besides, Bucky doesn’t do boyfriends. Babysitting to help his sister out while she bulldozes her way back into his life is not an audition for the Real Thing: Bucky Barnes having his own kids one day because he’s 29 and society tells him he should. Normalise not having kids. Normalise being a workaholic with a sex addiction.

He puts Tommy to bed and then checks on Alice, who is fast asleep despite not having dinner or brushing her teeth, on her stomach, her back rising gently with each breath. Bucky looks around and finds the blanket, his nan’s blanket, and arranges it on Alice as he tucks her in.

Steve’s watching something on the tv when Bucky heads back downstairs, and Bucky would care if he could think beyond downing four coffees or crashing out in the guest bedroom. Becca has a nice coffee machine too, the one with the pods that takes zero effort to use, so Bucky makes one for himself and one for Steve, with the milk that broadly boasts “Gluten Free!” on the label in an egregious display of redundancy.

They drink their coffee and watch whatever Steve’s picked that has a lot of car chase scenes in it. Bucky’s already zoned out by the time he realises Steve’s hand is right there on the couch between them within grabbing distance, and the sight of it brings him crashing back to reality. The thought occurs to him that maybe Steve might want him to take it.

Does Steve want him to take it? Did Steve put it there on purpose? Perhaps he’s just putting it there because it’s a hand and it goes places, unaware that Bucky is practically frothing at the mouth with the agony of choosing whether to grab it or not. 

Eventually, after about three minutes of torture, Bucky grabs it. Steve’s hand is warm and fits nicely, his fingers gentle when they squeeze, and Bucky almost has a heart attack. He feels sorry for Steve, because the poor bastard has no idea what he’s gotten into. Bucky really wants him, and usually he pursues what he wants until he finds a way to get it, but not when it comes to sex. Sex just happens to him. He can find it anywhere he looks, and he’s good looking enough that no one turns him down. Even if they do, he doesn’t care because it’s so easy to get. But he’s at a loss here. He has something with Steve, a friendship, that he doesn’t want to ruin. 

Bucky hasn’t had to try for anything that isn’t work in a long time. He can’t stand the thought of using Steve for sex, but what else is he doing? Is he really doing something as stupid as developing feelings? Is. He. Really.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, turning to him with a smile, and yep—that Pavlovian response is really kicking in.

Bucky swallows and feels his dick start to harden. He hasn’t had sex in almost a week, and in the grand scheme of things it’s a miracle he’s lasted this long, especially with the way Steve’s oversized sweaters slip over his shoulder and how he looks so pretty when he falls asleep on the couch, which must mean Bucky’s completely gone on him because he never thought of Steve as _pretty_ before.

“Hey yourself.”

Steve smile turns into something more dangerous as his grip tightens. “You know, if you want to fuck me, all you gotta do is ask.”

The groan Bucky lets out is entirely unbidden. “Not in my sister’s house. Not with Alice and Tommy upstairs.” Serves him right, he thinks, for getting involved with someone who’s a bigger asshole than he is. 

Steve shrugs, tangling their fingers together, rubbing his thumb over the back of Bucky’s hand. “Well, if you don’t want to fuck, the offer stands to fool around.” 

“Fuck you,” Bucky says, and Steve laughs, and keeps laughing as Bucky grabs him and hauls him closer to once again maul him, still laughing into the kiss as it turns from ravenous into something sweeter.

They’re about five minutes into making out leisurely, Bucky keeping his hands to himself because his boner is persistent enough and doesn’t need any more coaxing, when something catches his eye from across the room.

He looks towards the basket where Boof is sleeping, only to find that she’s not sleeping. She seems to be multiplying.

“Something’s happening to that dog,” Bucky says as Steve kisses across his jaw, before his brain catches up to him. “Oh god, she’s birthing.”

Steve whips around immediately while Bucky panics. He’s never seen a dog give birth and now is really not the time he wants to. This had to happen while he was here, didn’t it? It just had to. What is he supposed to do? Help? 

Luckily Steve’s brain works and he pulls out his phone. He’s surprisingly calm in the face of Bucky’s heavy breathing and arm waving in the direction of what is currently happening to his sister’s dog. 

“Hang on, I’ll just call Becca.”

“Yeah, call Becca.”

“Calm down.”

“_How_?”

“Are you the one giving birth? Take deep breaths.”

Bucky tries to calm his breathing by doing what Steve says as he calls Becca, who talks them into staying calm and letting the dog do her thing. The most important part is that Steve stays on the line with her while she and John book it back home and Bucky contains his meltdown. 

“Steve.” He pulls at Steve’s arm. “She’s doing something. Steve. What’s she doing.”

Steve swats him away and moves closer as Boof noses at the sack that had fallen out of her. She breaks it open with her teeth and they find a puppy inside, mewling and snuffling, its eyes closed. 

“Yeah, one of them’s here. Okay, yep, I got them.” Steve takes a towel from a stack next to the bed and puts the phone on the ground, on speaker, to pick up the puppy and wipe it down.

Bucky has moved closer to sit next to him as he does, watching the tiniest thing in the world make the cutest noises he’s ever heard, and he falls in love.

~

Becca arrives home about fifteen minutes into it, taking over from Steve. The veterinarian turns up after another half an hour, and by then there is another puppy to add to their family and Bucky is definitely crying. Even John is shedding a tear. At least the veterinarian is keeping her cool.

Becca tells them they don’t have to stay for the whole process, but Bucky wants to now, and he knows Steve does too. Becca and Bucky are on the couch while Steve sits on the floor and John hovers, all of them glued to the yorkie giving birth.

“What are you going to do with them?”

Becca looks at John, who shrugs. “We didn’t know she was pregnant until a month ago. We suppose we’ll be giving them out to people who love dogs.”

“Bucky loves dogs,” Steve suggests, and Bucky could kiss him, really, he’s so innocent.

“Bucky hates dogs,” Becca says.

“Bucky loves those dogs,” Bucky corrects.

“And so does Steve,” Steve says.

Becca throws up her hands. “All right. If you can take care of it, you can have one. It’ll be like Christmas of ‘04 all over again.”

Steve beams up at Bucky, and, unfortunately, Bucky is definitely crying again.

~

Four hours and many cups of coffee later, all six puppies have been delivered into the world by the helping hands of one Steven Grant Rogers and Dr Stephanie Galati, who tells them the pups can’t be separated until at least eight weeks.

“Well,” Bucky says, as Becca follows them to Steve’s car, “I guess we’ll see you in eight weeks.”

Becca doesn’t look impressed. In fact, the look she gives Bucky is downright withering. “John’s birthday is coming up in four, so you’ll be here for that.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you sound exactly like our mother when you’re cross?” Bucky can’t help but be an asshole. Really, he can’t, it’s in his DNA.

Becca just rolls her eyes. “Goodnight, James.” She watches them as they get in Steve’s car and roll away, the night descending on them as they make their way through the back streets of Sands Point, Bucky feeling less like someone is going to run out in the middle of the road in front of the car and yell that they’re bringing down the property value of the neighbourhood just by being there.

“That was wild,” Bucky says, blowing out a breath. “I feel like one of my family members has announced they’ve got cancer, but it’s very treatable and everything is going to be okay.”

Steve huffs out a breath. “That’s not even remotely what it’s like.”

Bucky watches as the light from the street lamps above them plays out on Steve’s skin. He really is pretty—he’s got a sharp jawline and high cheekbones—but Bucky supposes he will always find Steve pretty now, no matter what he looks like. It’s stupid that it took having sex with him to see him like this, when he’s always been beautiful, and Bucky never noticed. 

Is it the height of vanity? Is he just a complete shithead? His therapist is going to have a field day with this. 

“Do you really want me to have a puppy?”

Steve shrugs. “You want one, I can tell. I think it’ll be good for you. You need something to keep you in line and stop you from working until 9 o’clock at night. Maybe if you get a puppy it’ll force you into a good routine where you come home before it’s dark.”

Bucky feels a bright spark of emotion in the rotted crevice where his heart should be. “You think about me like that?”

“Of course.” Steve says it like he means it, _of course_, because of course he does. 

The indicator clicks before he turns. Another car passes them and sends a sharp beam of light through their windshield, but Steve is still there when it leaves. 

Of course. 

“Someone has to think about you.”

It hits Bucky then that Steve is all Bucky has. After the hook ups and the business he picked because he’s good at it, not because he particularly cares about buying rugs for rich people, and the good body he has from grueling gym workouts, Steve is who he comes home to at the end of the day. Steve is who thinks about him when no one else does, and for more than just fucking on Bucky’s expensive sheets. 

“If I asked you to run away with me,” Bucky says, because he can’t keep his mouth shut and his entire life is one badly thought out thought experiment after the next, “would you? No questions, just pack our bags and leave?”

Steve laughs, glancing at Bucky with a fond look. “Isn’t that how we both ended up at Parsons?”

“That was just school. I’m talking about life.”

He’s clinging onto Steve’s every word, maybe because of the 15 cups of coffee he’s had in the last six hours, maybe because he’s falling face-first into a hell of his own design, one in which he can’t stop thinking about Steve, because he _can’t stop thinking about Steve_.

“Of course,” Steve says, just like that, and Bucky breathes a sigh.

Of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try and focus on some original writing and since I already have two podcasts that's going to take up any free time I have so this might be the last update for a while! I realise that will put people off because a lot of people don't read WIPs, but that's the way the turn tables. Please enjoy this update!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days after The Puppy Incident, Bucky still hasn't made a move on Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> she's not dead i resurrected her

Two days after The Puppy Incident, Bucky hasn’t made another move on Steve. He wants to, absolutely, but something stops him each time. He’s never been unsure of himself until now, never wanted something he wasn’t absolutely certain he was going to get, but as always, Steve makes him question himself. In this situation, it’s not clear whether that’s for the better or worse.

He’s coming back from the gym when he runs into a tall, blonde woman hanging outside his apartment door. She’s wearing tartan pants and a crop top that says “Fat Bear Week” in sparkly letters. Her hair is cropped short, and even to Bucky she’s attractive. The way she stands commands power. He would notice her in a crowd. 

He pulls his earphones out to greet her. “Are you waiting for me?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m here for Steve. You’re Bucky, right?”

“That’s me.”

She gives him a once-over glance, looking like she’s unimpressed by what she sees. Bucky shrugs it off.

“You mind?”

She steps back and he opens the door, leaving it open behind him for her to come in. “I’m Carol, by the way.”

“Carol, welcome to Chateau du Salissant.” He picks up the shirt Steve left lying behind the couch and tosses it into Steve’s open bedroom. “Steve, your friend is here!”

By the time Bucky puts his gym bag in his room and comes back out to grab some water, Steve has emerged from his room, wearing his only nice shirt and slacks. Bucky sighs at him. “I really need to take you shopping again.”

“What? I look good.”

“You look fine. There’s a difference. Presentation matters.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Stop negging me, Buck. Not everyone needs a wardrobe full of Armani ties and silk shirts.”

“I think he looks great,” Carol says, then before Bucky has a chance to argue, “Are you ready for our date?”

There have been few moments in Bucky’s life where he’s felt his iron-grip of control on the things around him loosen, and even fewer where it’s started to crumble completely. The first was halfway through his first year at college when he found out his parents’ fortune was no longer a fortune, but had been lost due to a series of foreseeable and highly dubious business transactions gone awry; the second was when his sister married a man who Bucky had told her again and again would knock her up, spend her money and leave her, only for her to marry him anyway.

This moment is, if not the latter, then at least the former. 

“Date?”

“Yeah,” Carol says, defiantly. “What, does he have to run his dates by you?”

Bucky is too floored by the revelation that Steve is dating people to be offended by Carol’s remark, and searches Steve’s face for any indication that she might be joking. Steve looks between them with an expression on his face that betrays his discomfort, but Bucky doesn’t care. This is a serious and devastating moment for him. If he had a heart, it would be breaking. 

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck. I’m—yeah.” Steve sounds hesitant and tired at the same time, which Bucky doesn’t have the energy to unpack.

Bucky swallows around the lump in his throat and manages a smile, forced and shaky though it is. “Well, good luck, kid. Knock ‘em dead.”

He punches Steve lightly on the arm and all but hurries back to his bedroom where he can have a nervous breakdown in peace. _Knock ‘em dead_, Christ. They leave shortly after, but not before Bucky starts to reevaluate his entire life. Is he really so much of an asshole that Steve would rather date other people? Does he even have any right to date Steve after everything they’ve done? Granted it hasn’t been a lot, and Bucky usually dates—well, he doesn’t date anyone, and it would only stand to reason that Steve would be the exception.

Except—Steve wants to date other people. He doesn’t want to date Bucky. He wants to date tall, blonde, amazon goddesses like Carol. And why would he want to date Bucky anyway? Steve clearly never gave a shit about what Bucky looks like, and Bucky’s an asshole, he knows this. He _was_ negging Steve, and he’s always been like that, because he thinks he’s better than everyone else. 

Well, okay. He’s going to stop being an asshole. He’s going to start being someone who Steve wants to date. Even if it never happens, maybe he’ll find someone who he wants to date and who wants to date him as well. 

There’s no one else like Steve, but maybe there’s someone else for Bucky out there. At the very least, someone to take his mind and mouth off his best friend.

~

About a week later, Bucky comes to the living room where Steve is watching some action movie with a lot of punching, holding a towel and a jar of coconut oil. “Can you do my hair?”

Steve yawns and takes the coconut oil. “Sure, pal.” He opens his legs for Bucky to sit between and arranges the towel half around his shoulders. “You could learn to do this yourself, you know.”

Bucky shrugs. “But then what would I need you for?”

Steve hasn’t mentioned Carol, and Bucky’s been doing his best to pretend like nothing is wrong with him, and it’s been easy so far. Steve makes it easy.

“Someone has to be the chum to your boat.”

Bucky tips his head back to look up at him. “You know you mean more to me than that, right?”

Steve gives him a look like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Okay…”

“I mean it.” He takes Steve’s coconut-oiled hand. “You’re my best friend. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

Steve smiles at him, that Steve smile he loves so much. “Yeah, Buck. I know. I’m with you too, you jackass.”

Bucky wants to kiss him so badly it hurts, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t have it in him to fuck Steve again when he’s this raw, and Steve has a girlfriend now, anyway. He lets Steve tip his head forward to get at the rest of his hair.

“I was thinking we should have a gathering.”

Bucky closes his eyes against the feeling of Steve’s fingers on his scalp. “Of witches?”

Steve huffs out a laugh. “Of friends. I think they should all meet each other.”

“You’re my only friend,” Bucky says, defensively. 

“I know you have other friends. You have Nat and Clint.”

“Oh, right.” Bucky percolates on this for a minute and tries not to let out ungodly noises at what Steve’s doing. “You’ve met them, though.”

“Yeah, but I thought it would be a good idea for them to meet each other.”

Whatever hair-brained scheme Steve is cooking up doesn’t immediately infiltrate Bucky’s brain through the haze of whatever Steve’s fingers are doing to him. “Why?”

“Because,” Steve says, kneading Bucky’s scalp a bit harder, and Christ, Bucky likes that even more, “they’re important to you, and Sam and Sharon are important to me. We should have more get-togethers. We’re adults, that’s what adults do.”

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to laugh. “Pal, I don’t know what to tell you, but you nap way too much to be an adult.” He doesn’t mention how weird it is that he’s still good friends with his ex-girlfriend, because Steve is as Steve does, and Bucky will never understand him or what makes straight people tick. 

“I want you to meet someone,” he says, finally. 

“Oh,” Bucky says. He swallows. “Who?”

“Someone I’ve been seeing.”

“Carol?”

“No,” Steve says, with a note of humour. Bucky doesn’t think he could find a situation less funny. “She’s a lesbian, Buck. Is your gay-dar broken?”

Bucky shrugs it off. “I don’t know what women are like.”

“And you never will. It’s just— I want you to meet them and, you know. Sus them out for me.”

Bucky bites back the immediate _no_ that bubbles up out of the pit of jealousy in his stomach. “No one’s good enough for you, Steve, you know that.”

Steve is silent for a minute as he does the rest of Bucky’s hair, and Bucky would be able to tell exactly what he’s thinking if they were looking at each other. “There.” He pulls his hands away and Bucky feels the loss instantly. “Go shave your legs or masturbate or whatever it is you do for twenty minutes.”

It’s an easy opening for Bucky to make a joke that Steve should join him, but he doesn’t. He gets up and says “thanks” roughly, wrapping his hair up and taking the coconut oil with him as he leaves, his heart beating so hard in his chest it’s going to break through. 

Steve deserves to be happy. If Steve is happy with someone other than Bucky, then that’s just something Bucky will have to live with.

~

Bucky is four texts away from lying to his friends that Steve is sick, and lying to Steve that his friends are sick, before Clint and Natasha barge their way into his apartment with Lucky in one of their hands and wine in the others. He’s been trying this thing called ‘mindfulness’ lately, and whatever it’s teaching him is about to be put to the test.

“Oh,” Bucky says, with zero enthusiasm. “You made it.”

Clint, who acts like everyday is Tijuana Tuesdays, is oblivious to Bucky’s feelings and pulls him in for a hug, while Natasha glares knowingly at him. “Hell yeah, we made it. Why would we miss this?”

He turns around with an “aye-oooo” when he sees Steve and pulls him into a hug as well while Lucky tries to jump up on them.

Since Natasha doesn’t do hugs—as far as Bucky is aware, she doesn’t do much of anything—she puts the wine down on the counter, hi-fives him instead and then hip-checks him. 

“What’s up, slut?” She’s always got this rosy glow to her cheeks that on anyone else would look like she’s wearing too much makeup, but somehow she manages to pull it off.

“Nothing, dearest.”

“Oh really? You haven’t dropped a mournful soliloquy into my message bank about how no guys in this city are worth your time in, like, weeks now. Did something happen?”

Bucky glances over to where Steve is wrestling with Lucky and Clint is cracking open the wine already, and shrugs. “Nope.”

“Well, good.” She says it as though trying to sound sure of it. “Keep it that way.”

Steve pulls them both into the living room while Bucky checks on the pizzas. He’s painfully aware that Steve has a special guest coming who isn’t his other best friend or his ex-girlfriend, and try as he might, he just can’t seem to keep his feelings in check. It’s bad enough that Natasha’s noticing; he would hate for Steve to notice too.

A knock at the door sounds while Bucky’s in the kitchen, and he opens it to find Sam and Sharon introducing themselves to each other.

“I’m Sam, by the way.”

“Oh, Sharon. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, _Sharon_.” Sam glances over at Bucky when the door opens. “Hey, JB. We’re here for the party, apparently.” He’s such a nice guy that Bucky almost hates him. That’s not fair though, right? To hate someone you don’t really know that well? 

He’s not particularly fond of Sharon, either, and he’s not willing to go digging around in his psyche to find out why. It has something to do with how she and Steve dated on and off for four years, and maybe, now Bucky’s not thinking about it, his own jealousy.

Bucky winces as Clint makes a sound like a machine gun going off. “Yep, party of six. Come on through.”

He shuts the door behind them and hustles them into the living room. Steve, Clint and Nat have taken it upon themselves to redecorate and pushed all of Bucky’s nice couches to the side so they can sit around the coffee table. 

Bucky takes a deep breath. He is not being judgemental, he reminds himself. He is calm, and in control of his own emotions. 

“What do you think?” Clint says, motioning around the room as if he painted it himself. “Nice space, huh?”

“I need to check on the pizzas,” Bucky says.

~

They’re about four glasses of wine each deep when Steve breaks out the vodka—Reyka, the shit that Natasha likes—and Bucky’s head is already swimming enough with how many people are in his space that he refuses and flips Natasha off when she stares at him too long.

Lucky has his head in Bucky’s lap, and Bucky absently scratches behind his ears. He has to get used to having a dog, he thinks, although he knows his own dog will be cuter and better.

“You refuse mother’s milk?” she asks, because she’s had eight glasses of wine while Bucky’s had none, so it evens out.

“I can do whatever I want.”

“Have more pizza, Nat,” Clint urges, shoving another slice into her hand while she laughs.

“Okay, okay,” Sharon pipes up, looking rosy in the cheeks. “I have a fun game.”

“Fun like laughing fun or fun like—” Bucky imitates shooting himself in the head and Steve grins at him over the rim of his glass.

“Fun fun,” Sharon says, and, “thank you,” as Steve tops her up. “Worst date you’ve ever been on, go.”

She points at Sam, who holds his hands up as if to say he wants to do nothing of the sort. “I’m good, honestly.”

“I have one,” Natasha says, and Bucky braces himself for whatever hell is about to be told. “Picture the scene: Vienna, 2015, a moonlit night. A young American woman, beautiful beyond belief, had just stumbled into town two days previously—” Bucky tries not to laugh, but the thought of Nat stumbling anywhere gets to him. “—and run into another American, this one much stupider and more fond of dogs. What she finds in the minute that they meet is that she’s fond of idiots, and what he finds is that not all dogs are fond of him.”

Clint perks up from his position on the floor. “Hey, this is how we met.”

“And that,” Natasha continues, louder for the interruption, “is how they wound up in the hospital, him not understanding German, and she too soft for her own good.”

“Your first date with your husband was in a hospital,” Sam says, not quite a question although he doesn’t believe it. “Well, that beats mine. I was going to say, ‘At a Knicks’ game’.”

Bucky clinks his glass of Sprite against Sam’s vodka in mutual disdain. He catches Steve’s eye again, and Steve looks flushed, beautiful and smiling, which is almost enough to make Bucky think that he’s contributed to it. He supposes he has—he let his friends come over, he made the pizzas, he’s been accommodating to the combined weirdness of all of their people in one enclosed space. So in a way, he is directly responsible for all of Steve’s happiness. 

The thought warms him enough that he reaches for the bottle of Reyka, pouring himself a nip when a knock at the front door comes, and they all glance around. 

“Oh,” Steve says. “That’s him. Wait here.”

They all pause their chattering while Steve pounces to get the door. Bucky can’t see from his position what Steve is doing, but the place is silent enough that he can hear: Steve saying hi, his friend saying hi back, Steve’s voice high like he gets when he’s happy, really happy, and by the time he brings his friend into the living room, Bucky’s heart has already sunk through his stomach and is sitting somewhere beneath the floorboards.

“Everyone, this is Thor.”

If Bucky is hot, then Thor is a god. Even taller than Bucky, with long blonde hair, a beard, and enough muscles to stop a Mack Truck in its tracks. Everyone in the room is staring at him, even Clint and Sam, with looks of admiration and awe; everyone except Bucky, who tries to school his face into something neutral instead of spitting hatred and jealousy. 

“Hello, Steve’s friends.” 

“Ooh, an accent,” Sharon says, more put together than everyone else in the room. 

They all stare at Thor for a minute until Sam reaches over with his hand out. “Hey, I’m Sam.”

Thor takes it in both of his and dips his head. “Sam, great to meet you,” sounding like he means it. The rest of them introduce themselves and Thor looks at them attentively and like he’s actually trying to memorise their names. 

Eventually, Bucky remembers the reason why Thor is here, and glances over to Steve, who beams up at Thor before he glances to Bucky with a less certain look on his face.

“You must be Bucky,” Thor says, and Bucky startles. “Steve speaks very highly of you.”

“Yep, that’s me. Just Bucky.” He doesn’t extend his hand because he feels like if Thor touched him he might throw up. He’s glad he didn’t start drinking already because then he definitely would anyway. Just throw up right there, all over Thor’s boots. God, he’s wearing boots. Like Tinkerbell. Or a pirate. “How long have you been dating?”

“About a week, wouldn’t you say?” Thor glances over at Steve, who nods.

“Oh. A week.”

There must be something in his voice that alerts everyone in the room—or maybe it’s just his face, his lack of enthusiasm, and his general dour mood—and Natasha starts laughing while Clint says, “We should go, gotta get this one to bed,” and Sharon gathers her bag and coat while making her own excuses, and Sam says he’ll walk her to the station, and then it’s just Bucky and Steve—and Thor. 

How could Bucky possibly forget _Thor_. 

Thor even says goodbye to everyone like he means it. Bucky tries to make a quick exit, but Steve pulls him up. 

“Hey, are you okay with this?”

Bucky wants to look anywhere other than at Steve, but he can’t. He can’t even bring himself to look away because he _wants_ to look at Steve. More than anything, he wants to look at Steve more than he’s ever wanted to look at anyone else. 

But he also wants to make Steve happy. So it’s a selfless thing he’s doing, maybe, to smile over the way his heart breaks when Steve glances back at Thor, and smiles, and Thor smiles, and to say, “Of course. You know I’m happy for you, right?”

Steve’s eyes crinkle up in a smile, at Bucky this time, and he says, “Thank you, Buck. I really mean it, for everything,” leaning up to kiss him on the cheek, and it’s all Bucky can do not to hightail it back to his room before Steve leaves for his own, pulling Thor with him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets drunk and is extremely embarrassing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so there is extremely explicit Bucky/OMC in the first part of this chapter, and mentions of Steve/Thor. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to do this (I’m writing off the cuff) so hopefully everything will work out? If that’s not a good enough guarantee feel free to jump ship.

Two weeks after he met Thor, Bucky’s had enough. He can _hear_ Steve and Thor’s fucking from the other side of the apartment, and barely comes out of his own room because he knows Thor will be there, taking up space, sitting on Bucky’s carefully curated lounge set, drinking craft beers and ordering UberEats. Everything about that picture upsets Bucky to a degree he can’t even fathom let alone unpack, not least of all that Steve is hanging out with someone else in their apartment. He’s so angry about it he decides to do something resembling going out, getting hammered, and picking up whichever guy looks his way first.

He calls up Natasha though, because she’s always down to mock his terrible choices.

“‘Sup, skank,” she says when she picks up. 

“Wanna wingman me?”

“Sure.” She doesn’t even hesitate. “Did your other plans fall through?”

“What other plans?”

“The plans that have stopped you from sobbing into my inbox about how all men are trash and you should just become celibate.”

“I don’t sob,” Bucky says loftily, despite how he has come very close in the past two weeks. 

“Alright. I’ll come out with you.” She pauses before she hangs up. “God, what is that noise?”

“Steve and Thor are having sex.” Bucky tries very hard to keep his voice level, but maybe that’s a giveaway in itself. He can hear something banging against the wall, which might be a fist and might be the bed. A month ago Bucky liked his life. 

“Really,” Natasha says, curiosity piquing in her tone. “And how do you feel about that?”

“What are you, my shrink? I don’t feel anything. Good for Steve for finally getting laid. I knew he’d do it eventually.”

“Mmkay,” Natasha says. “I’ll meet you in an hour at that dive bar you like, the one with all the slutty men in crop tops.”

“Right-o.”

That dive bar is a half hour subway ride, and Bucky’s almost ready, so he has to sit there in his room listening to whatever the hell is going on in Steve’s until he’s about to leave and it finally quiets down.

As he’s leaving his room, he catches sight of Steve heading towards the kitchen, his hair in disarray and wearing a Hawaiian shirt that is about eight sizes too big for him. No pants. Bucky would hazard a guess that he’s not wearing any underwear either. 

“Hey Buck,” Steve says, his voice croaking with the effort of talking.

“Hey pal,” Bucky says, his voice very even and calm and extremely normal. He’s normal right now. Nothing weird is going on. 

Steve has a full-body flush happening, and Bucky tries not to stare. God, he’s pretty like this. Bucky would go so far as to say beautiful, because it would be less likely to elicit a punch from Steve. Bucky follows him into the kitchen where Steve pours himself a glass of water. Bucky watches in agony as he tips his head back to drink it, his throat bobbing, his eyes closed. 

“Sorry if we’re disturbing you,” Steve says when he’s finished, a little embarrassed, scratching the back of his neck. 

“Nothing to worry about,” Bucky lies. “I guess you’re paying me back.”

Steve’s expression turns confused. “For what?”

“Like—you know. Disturbing you. With all the sex I’ve been having.”

“Have you?” Steve wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I didn’t notice.”

“Well, like—not lately, you know, but. In general.”

“Well,” Steve says, smirking, “I’m sure you’ll get out of your dry spell soon.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Thanks, asshole. Good luck to you, too. Never forget who got you out of yours.”

“And I appreciate it every day. Can’t you tell how appreciative I am?”

Bucky laughs, as strained as it is, and watches Steve walk back into his bedroom before he leaves, his shirt slipping over his shoulder, the back of his neck covered in hickeys. Bucky really needs to get it together. 

~

The guy’s name is Brent or Branton or some stupid shit, and Bucky is drunk enough that he guesses it doesn’t matter that Brintun’s family paid for him to get into law school, because that’s what everyone does, and anyway, he’s getting the best grades in his year and he’s on track to getting summa cum laude, so it’s like they should be paying _him_.

Natasha’s disappeared somewhere and Bucky’s not worried because she can take down a linebacker with one hand tied behind her back, but he did appreciate that she turned up in the first place. Bucky downs his seventh rum and cola and blurts, “You wanna fuck in the bathrooms?”

Brunt nods enthusiastically so Bucky takes his hand and pulls him in that direction, across the dance floor where a bunch of white girls are trying to twerk to a Miley Cyrus song, and into the cool, disgusting, quiet-enough reprieve of the men’s toilets. He all but stomps into the second stall, still pulling Brentan with him, shoving him up against the door as he closes it behind them.

“You know, I don’t usually do—”

“Okay,” Bucky says, before kissing him to shut him up.

His hands come up to Bucky’s hips and hold him close as Bucky attacks his mouth, pulling at his waistband the whole time in an effort to make him get the hint. Eventually he does and shucks his jeans down, Bucky pulling a condom and lube out of his pocket before he does the same. 

He looks down at Brunton’s sub-par dick and has a moment where he wonders if he really wants that inside him, before he reasons that he’s had worse in worse places, so he turns and pulls the guy with him. 

There’s a short wait of Bucky leaning with his hands on the cubicle wall where the guy gets the condom on and lubes himself up, but the press of his dick into the cleft of Bucky’s ass is worth it. 

He slides in without much resistance, since Bucky prepped himself in the shower before he left, and he hits home easily, sliding to the hilt in a low drawl that lights Bucky up from the inside. 

“Fuck,” the guy says, and this is exactly what Bucky’s needed to take his mind off Steve.

Steve, who could be fucking Bucky like this, if he wanted to. Because Bucky wants him to. He wants Steve to fuck him until he doesn’t know his own name. 

But he supposes this will do.

~

He’s stumbling back from the station after downing four more drinks in the span of an hour while Natasha egged him on and teased him the whole time until he thought he was going to cry. He didn’t cry, thank god, because Natasha would never let him live it down. Also, Bronton hung around the rest of the night and Bucky couldn’t think of anything he’d want to do less than hang around with a hookup who isn’t Steve.

God, it’s unerringly awful how bad Bucky has it for him, especially knowing Steve is taken now. 

Somehow Bucky gets lost coming home—as much as he knows these streets like the back of his hand when he’s sober, he’s currently plastered on cheap rum—and when he opens his phone to check Google Maps, he ends up even more lost. 

Somehow he manages to call Steve, who picks up quick enough that maybe he’s not having sex anymore. And how great is that, Bucky thinks, through his jealous, drunken haze. 

“Bucky?”

“Steve.” It’s good to hear his voice focused on Bucky. “‘M lost. Pick me up? Can’t find. Shit. Don’t know.”

“Okay, Buck,” Steve says. Reckless Steve, who’s bad in a fight but good in an emergency. “Do you know where you are? Do you see a street sign?”

“Uh.” Bucky gets up off the curb to wander along the street until he finds a sign. “Sackett Street. No, Henry—corner Henry and Sackett.”

“I’ll be right there. Stay on the phone with me, okay?”

“Sure thing, pal.” Bucky wants to lie down and sleep, but he doesn’t think the curb would be too comfortable. He can hear music playing somewhere. People are laughing, the fuckers. Bucky should be laughing. Instead, he’s miserable and drunk, sitting on a curb in the middle of fucking Nowheresville, acting like he’s got a broken heart. What is he, a lovesick teen? God, that’s exactly what he is.

“How’d you get all the way out to Cobble Hill?” Steve’s voice is nice. It’s a nice sound. Bucky wants to hear him moan again. He can hear a car engine start and the sound of doors closing. Steve‘s still on the phone, so that must mean Thor is driving.

“How’d you—pick up Th—” His horribly invasive question is derailed by turning to the grass and yakking into it. 

“Bucky? Did you just throw up?”

Bucky starts to shiver like he always does when he’s sick. Plus the taste of vomit and stomach acid reflux doesn’t taste too good, and he just wants to be home, in his bed, pretending the night didn’t happen. 

At least he found out that he can actually get his dick hard for people who aren’t Steve. So that’s a thing.

They continue talking just to keep Bucky alive or at the very least awake, and Steve finds him soon enough, pulling up in a bright yellow Audi and rushing out to help Bucky up where he’s lying in his own vomit. 

_Nice_, Bucky thinks, as Steve peels him off the grass. _Class act, Barnes, you fucking loser._

Steve gets him in Thor’s nice car that Bucky will forever ruin with his vomit smell—so maybe the night isn’t entirely wasted—and they drive in silence back to their apartment building. Thor parks outside, and Steve wishes him goodnight as he helps Bucky out, and then up the stairs, into the elevator, and onto their floor. 

“Come on, Buck,” Steve says, even though Bucky isn’t really leaning on him so much as letting Steve lead him around. 

“Wait, Steve,” Bucky says, as they come to their door. Steve looks at him like he’s worried about Bucky, and Bucky wants to reassure him that’s he’s fine, really, he’s okay. He can’t find the words though, so he takes Steve’s hand, brings it up to his mouth, and kisses his knuckles. “You’re too good for me, Steve.”

Steve’s expression turns soft, and he continues to pull Bucky until they’re inside. “Come on, let’s get you showered.”

Steve helps him shower, brush his teeth, and put on new underwear, but when he tries to leave Bucky grabs his hand again and stops him. Bucky pulls Steve towards him where he’s sitting up on the bed, nauseous, dizzy and severely dehydrated. 

“Will you stay with me?”

He’s never felt more vulnerable than he does right now. The glow from the outside street lamps shine in through his window and Steve is thrown into light and shadow. Bucky’s scraped raw from the inside, all of him bare and real, and the messiness of it should be enough to turn anyway away. Is that why he’s so afraid of commitment? He doesn’t want to be seen for who he really is, because that person is not likeable? That person is very unlikeable. 

But Steve sees him. Steve sees all of him, and he nods, and he gets into bed beside Bucky, and he lies there with him until Bucky falls asleep. 

~

Bucky’s glad Steve’s not there when he wakes up to save himself the embarrassment of being alive, until he opens his eyes properly and realises that Steve is actually still there, but asleep. He glances towards his phone on the nightstand, which Steve very generously plugged in to charge, and sees a glass of water and some Ibuprofen waiting for him. 

Is Steve the best person in the world? Maybe so.

Bucky has to go to work soon, but he’d rather blow it off to nurse his embarrassment. He downs both of them and when he turns over to go the hell back to sleep, Steve’s eyes are open and he’s staring at Bucky like he’s the one who can’t believe Bucky is still there. 

“Hey,” Bucky says, voice scratchy. “Thanks for, um—”

“Of course,” Steve says, cracking a smile. “You seemed pretty helpless without me. Like a newborn puppy.”

“Oh right, we should be getting one soon. Thanks for reminding me.”

“And John’s birthday party is coming up this weekend. Becca invited me as well. She sent us both embroidered invitations.”

“Christ,” Bucky says, but he can’t fault her for being excited, even if it’s John she’s excited about. “She always did love a party. When we were kids, she used to make up holidays and then get us to dress up and give each other presents.”

“I bet your parents loved shelling out.”

“They did, actually. They were always spoiling us rotten.” Bucky cracks his own smile, and Steve’s turns into something warm, lovely. Bucky wants to crawl inside it and live there. 

He can’t help himself, and he is the stupidest person in the world apparently, so he reaches out his hand to brush a thumb over Steve’s cheek. Steve closes his eyes against the feeling and Bucky’s heart aches again, just like it has been this whole time whenever he remembers this thing they have between them. This unnameable, unquantifiable thing. He touches Steve’s lip with his thumb—the lower one, the plump one—dragging it ever so slightly down, and Steve’s eyes fly open again.

And because Bucky is stupid, and because he can’t help himself, he leans over and kisses Steve, and Steve, fucking Steve—he kisses back.

Bucky’s kisses him for longer than he should, opening his mouth and flicking his tongue against Steve’s lips just for them to open for him, and Bucky deepens the kiss with a hand on Steve’s jaw. 

Then Steve whines, this low, throaty thing, and pushes Bucky onto his back to lean over him.

“Are you serious about this?” Steve asks, warning in his voice.

“I’ve never been more serious about anything.” It’s the truth. It’s hard for even Bucky to bear, but he means it, every word. “But what about Thor?”

Steve shrugs, still leaning over him, still inside the covers. “That’s just sex with benefits.”

“Don’t you mean friends with benefits?”

“Nope. Friendship is the benefit.”

“Oh.” The relief that floods through Bucky is palpable, and he doesn’t have a headache anymore, because kissing Steve is the cure to all ills, apparently. Or maybe it’s the Ibuprofen. He wants to ask, _is that what we’re doing? Just sex with benefits?_ but he doesn’t. “Will you kiss me again, then?”

“Sure, you jackass.”

Steve does kiss him, deeply and roughly, making it count. He pushes a thigh between Bucky’s and then Bucky is rubbing up against him, getting hard, electricity flowing between them from the contact.

Steve leans on the arm beside Bucky’s shoulder and reaches between them to feel Bucky’s hardening cock through his underwear. Bucky hisses, ruts up into Steve’s hand, bites his lip. Steve grips him and starts to stroke at a devastating pace. The thought from last night enters his mind—Steve fucking him, fucking the memory of everyone else out of him. 

“Steve, can you—would—do you want to fuck me?” Bucky finally gets the words out just for Steve to still his hand and look at him with those deep blue eyes. 

“You really want me to?”

Bucky nods his head, a little too vigorously to be casual or calm about it. He doesn’t care right now. He’s never been casual or calm about Steve before, and he wants this so badly he can feel it vibrate throughout his whole body, all of him on alert and ready.

“How do you want it?”

“Would you give it to me?”

Steve smiles again, the crinkled up paper smile, the one he barely uses for anyone he doesn’t consider a friend, not even the nurses just doing their jobs or the doctors who push pills on him instead of treating him. Steve only reserves this smile for the people he really cares about.

“Sure, Buck.” 

Bucky’s breath starts to labour under the intensity of it all as he reaches for the lube and condoms on his nightstand, right next to the tissues and his phone, while Steve works on his own clothing. Steve decides _fuck it_ and throws the covers back, and now Bucky can see him, all five-foot-six-inches of wiry testosterone and spitfire, watches him shuck his clothes and then pull down Bucky’s underwear with a look that signals good times ahead.

Steve runs his hands up Bucky’s calves, pulling them open before he works his way up, touching Bucky everywhere. Fuck, Bucky thinks, where did Steve learn to do this? If it’s from Thor Bucky might actually throw something. No way would that dingus know how to treat a man. Maybe Steve’s been watching a lot of porn. That’s a better train of thought.

Bucky’s brain short circuits as Steve kisses up the inside of his thigh, moving higher before he comes to a stop, taking Bucky’s dick into his mouth. Bucky has to close his eyes against the feeling. The heat and pressure of Steve’s mouth is too much, too good, even better when Steve sinks down to take all of him. 

Okay, so maybe Thor made some points. 

Steve starts to bob on Bucky’s dick, drawing back just to sink down again while he makes these little breathy noises that go straight to Bucky’s head. 

“Stop, Steve stop—I’m gonna come if you don’t stop.”

Steve pulls back immediately. “Are you okay? Am I not—?”

“You’re fine,” Bucky reassures him. “This is good, I just don’t want to come yet. I want to come from your cock.”

Steve breaks out in a smile, looking like he wants that too, so he reaches for the lube and a condom, rolling one down and slicking himself up. He’s hard, his cock thick and fat when it presses against Bucky’s hole, still slick from the night before, Bucky’s knees pulled to his chest for easier access. Steve watches himself disappear into him and the thought of Steve seeing him, seeing all of him, is almost too much to bear. 

Bucky’s not used to being this vulnerable. Steve seems to realise that and takes his time, leaning over to kiss Bucky as he enters him, and Bucky kisses back greedily. He’s wanted this for so long without realising it, it seems almost impossible that he’s getting it.

Steve stops when he’s fully seated inside, looking down at Bucky with something like wonder in his eyes, and it’s all Bucky can do not to flinch away or act like Steve is just another in a string of faceless lovers. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, softly. 

“Hey yourself.” Bucky’s throat is sore, probably from vomiting the night before. “I didn’t know you were bi.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Steve says, even though Bucky would bet on it that that’s not true. Maybe one or two things, but a lot? No way. “I’m going to move now, okay?”

Bucky nods.

Steve starts to thrust into him, shallow, fluid movements at first that fill Bucky up and light him up inside, until Steve gets him used to it and starts thrusting deeper and quicker. 

“Oh, fuck,” Bucky says, feeling the pleasure rock through him in time with Steve’s hips. “Mmngh,” Bucky says, eloquently. He feels frayed at the edges, like Steve is picking him apart, his whole body like a raw nerve that elicits noises everywhere Steve touches him—on his chest, his thighs, the backs of his knees, his jaw. Everywhere Steve touches him is where Bucky wants his hands to be. He can feel Steve’s hips against the back of his thighs and even that makes him wild. 

“Are you having fun?” Steve asks, laughter in his voice, and a laugh bubbles out of Bucky’s chest to match it. Steve sounds like he’s out of breath, but he’s still giving it to Bucky in the best way.

“Shut up, punk.”

“Or what?”

“Or nothing.” Bucky gets a hand around the back of Steve’s neck to pull him down, kissing him as he’s fucking Bucky into a bundle of raw nerves, as he’s fucking the memory of last night’s hook up out of him, and when Steve hits his prostate it’s game over, his stomach tightening and balls drawing up, Bucky coming in hot spurts already, messing himself up.

“Fuck,” Steve says, and stills long enough that Bucky knows he’s coming too. 

He pulls out gently, like Bucky is the kind of fine china his parents had in their house before they sold everything, but Bucky is grateful anyway. Steve knows how to take care of him. Steve knows him better than anyone.

Steve ties the condom and tosses it into the bin beside the bed, letting Bucky roll over onto him when he lies down. Steve’s so thin, but there’s a power to his body that Bucky’s always loved. 

They bask in the glow for a few minutes. Steve is so warm, and so good at sex, and now they’ve fucked again maybe this time Steve will want to be with Bucky. That’s how it works, right? They’ve fucked a few times now, and that’s as good a reason as any to date. That and the fact that Bucky is so gone on Steve he’s completely lost his bearings. Was he always such a fuckboy? Didn’t he care about anyone else?

No, he thinks. Only Steve.

“Thor’s coming over later in the week,” Steve says, and it brings Bucky crashing back to reality. 

“What?”

“Thor? He’s coming over. I hope we’re not keeping you up at night.”

Bucky feels a sickness in the pit of his stomach that spreads throughout his body, a direct counterpoint to how good he felt when Steve was inside him. 

“Right,” Bucky says, rolling off of Steve. “You’re still seeing Thor.”

“Well, we’re not exclusive, so Thor’s seeing other people too.”

“Right,” Bucky says. The ceiling has never been more interesting than it is now. It’s still covered in those little glow stars he and Steve put up there the first night they moved in “so you don’t get scared of the dark”. Fuck, Bucky suddenly misses the time when he didn’t have feelings for Steve. It seems so long ago, even though it’s only been a couple months. It might as well have been forever. “I gotta piss.”

Bucky rolls off his bed and heads for his ensuite, leaving Steve in his bed, looking at the stars.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky continues his rampage of assholery.

The world, it seems, cannot be kind to Bucky for even one day. When he gets back from work he finds Sam sitting on his couch while some car chase movie plays on the tv, presumably waiting for Steve. 

“Hey, what’s going on?”

Bucky freezes when he catches sight of Sam. “Not much. What’s going on with you? I swear I’m not being an asshole.” He has to say it to make it true. 

“Uh, I didn’t think you were.” Sam and Bucky stare each other down over the kitchen counter for several long seconds. “So—”

“Is Thor here?”

Sam puts the tv on mute. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”

Bucky holds up a finger and pads softly in his socks over to Steve’s door. He waits a beat, but when he doesn’t hear anything his shoulders sag with a sigh. “Do you hear that? The sound of nothing. No one is getting railed, no hair is being pulled, no ball gags muffling moans. Nothing. Peace. Isn’t it beautiful?” He toes off his shoes and hangs his coat on the rack by the door.

“You have a real sick sense of humour, JB.”

“Judge not lest ye be judged yourself.”

“So, yeah, that thing I wanted to talk about—”

Bucky sighs and drops into the couch next to Sam. “Let me guess. You’re a regular guy, you’ve always considered yourself straight, even if you have looked at other men sometimes and wondered. Maybe even admired a guy’s ass in the gym—but you brushed it off as envy over his body. But recently you met someone, a real amazing dude, who’s fun to be around, he makes you laugh, and he’s even posed the question, ‘Have you ever been with a man?’” 

Sam’s eyebrows climb incrementally higher as Bucky talks. 

“You said you hadn’t, but now you’re thinking, what if you did? What would that mean? Would you still be straight? Would you still be you? And which guy? This new friend you made? Would he even want to? And now you’re caught up in all these questions, making it even harder to parse the thought that this guy basically told you he was interested in you and the fact that you may be interested in him too. That about right?”

Sam is silent for a moment as Bucky’s words settle over him. “Wow, you talk _so much_. Also, my ass is already fantastic.”

“Was I wrong?”

“Okay, so I have met a guy,” Sam says, and Bucky turns up his palms as if to say, _Yes, I am that good_. “An old high school buddy, actually. He’s come back to town, and we’ve caught up a few times.”

“And you’re after…?”

“Ah, a nice restaurant, I guess. I can’t just take him to The Meatball Shop. Steve tells me you go on a lot of dates—” 

Bucky snorts. 

“—and maybe some tips? Like you said, I’ve never done this before.”

Bucky puts a hand on Sam’s knee and looks him dead in the eye. “Samuel Gertrude Wilson—”

“Not my name.”

“—I’m honoured that you came to me with the most important of tasks: pimping you out for your date.”

“Not what I came here for. Are you going to take this seriously?”

Bucky laughs as Sam gets increasingly more frustrated. 

“I hate you so much, man.”

“Alright, alright!” Bucky says. “Take him to Via Carota. If you give me a day before you jump the gun I can get you a table this Friday night. The front of house manager owes me.”

Sam looks like he might hug Bucky before deciding it would not end well for either of them. “Turns out you are a good guy after all. All this time I thought Steve was making it all up.”

At Steve’s name Bucky freezes, throat dry and ears pricked. “What did Steve say about me?”

Sam gives him a look like he’s being weird. “Just that you’re a great guy. He always talks about you. You didn’t know that?”

“No,” Bucky admits, completely thrown off the course of being an endearing asshole. “We haven’t been talking that much lately.”

Sam huffs a laugh. “That sounds like a you problem, because Steve thinks you hung the moon.” He slaps Bucky on the shoulder. “Thanks again, man. I was just waiting for Steve so don’t let me stop you from doing whatever.”

Bucky gets up in a little bit of a daze, thinking about Steve. “They should call me the straight guy whisperer. First Steve and now you? Soon, the rest of New York. And then, Pinkie, the _world_.”

~

It’s a good thing for Becca that Steve’s driving, because Bucky would’ve pulled over at several different places along the way just to scream into the sky. He’s close to screaming already, and so is Steve, judging by the looks he keeps shooting Bucky. 

Steve is also sick, which he refuses to admit despite the amount of phlegm he’s been coughing up at home. They manage to go the whole journey to Becca’s without either of them having either a panic attack or a coughing fit, so it’s a successful day if only for that.

But between Steve’s sore throat and Bucky’s jealousy, they don’t talk much, and things are stilted and awkward. It hurts Bucky to think about the other morning, Steve hasn’t brought it up, and they haven’t had sex since, but apparently everything is hunky dory in Steve’n’Bucky land. The tried and tested WASP way is to ignore everything that makes Bucky feel bad, so that’s what he does. 

Anyway, he’ll have enough to deal with today without his Steve-baggage. As they drive through Westchester, Bucky is bombarded with long-repressed memories of his childhood, getting lost in suburban streets and playing the piano for hours on end while his mother drank dry martinis and ogled the pool boy. Everything about his childhood was an upper-class, privileged cliche that he’s glad he escaped from, despite the snide comments his parents make about how he now lives in Brooklyn with a guy like Steve. It makes him want to rebel all over again. 

Funnily enough, proud Republicans though they are, they don’t care that Bucky’s gay, and that’s just one less thing he has to prove to them. 

Steve breaks the uneasy silence eventually. “What’s up?”

“Hmm?” Well, Bucky? _Well?_ What IS up? 

“What’s up with you? You haven’t called me a dork in over a week.”

“That’s because—” Bucky starts, ready with something like _because you’re not a dork, you’re a dweeb_, before he stops himself. “You’re amazing,” he finishes, like a fucking dork. 

He can feel Steve turn to him and can imagine the look on his face, but since Bucky’s staring out the car window at the slowly ripening tree leaves, he doesn’t have to do anything about it.

When they roll up on the mansion, Bucky steels himself for whatever fresh horror is about to unfold and gets out of the car before he can lose his nerve. Steve follows him closely with a hand on Bucky’s back because Steve can read him better than anyone. Joseph, the butler, is standing at attention outside the doors comes forward to take Steve’s keys, and Steve hands them over with a look like he’d rather not. 

“I thought you said your parents were bankrupt.”

Bucky shrugs. “The thing about rich people is that they know how to make money.”

“Don’t act like you’re not one of them,” Steve jokes, and Bucky rolls his eyes. Steve looks red all over the parts of his face that aren’t covered by his coat lapels, and Bucky would guess that he’s too warm underneath it.

“I do my laundry in the same broke down washing machine as you do, sweetheart.” He means it to come out biting, but the endearment rolls of his tongue with a tenderness he doesn’t allow himself to have around anyone but Steve. 

Instead of dwelling on it, he walks through the open door, in front of Steve to protect him. As they walk through the entrance hall, voices carry out from the drawing room, and they head in that direction. The closer they get, the more Bucky’s anxiety mounts, and the calmer he appears, his defence mechanism pulling itself out of the corners of his damaged psyche after years of disuse. He thought that maybe it would be different, that he could come back a different person with an open heart, that maybe his family wouldn’t affect him the way they always did, but apparently not. 

Well, he figures, it’s still early.

When they enter the drawing room, Becca looks up from her position on the floor in front of the fire, a lapful of dogs, says, “Bucky, you made it,” and the rest of the people in the room look at him too—two of his cousins, an aunt, and his father, all sitting on the antique couches and watching Becca as she plays with the yorkies. 

“Norman, Lyle, Margaret,” he says in turn, giving them a wave. He turns to his father, his father’s impassive, lined face, the nose Bucky sees in the mirror, the liver spots he’ll have one day after he blinks and wakes up at 65. “Sir,” he says, and his father holds out his hand for Bucky to shake.

“James, my boy,” he says, taking Bucky’s hand in his own. “I thought Becca was lying when she said you’d be joining us.”

“I’d hate to make Becs into a liar.” His father keeps eye contact for another few seconds, and Bucky tries not to squirm away. They never had a good relationship, and he’s not about to mistake cordiality for acceptance. Eventually, George lets go and looks around. “Dad, you remember Steve.”

Steve comes forward to shake George’s hand, and George gives Steve that same unimpressed look that makes Bucky want to punch him. “Still skinny, then?”

“Always, sir.”

George snorts. “Should let Bucky take you to the ring.”

“He’s been trying, sir.”

George snorts and starts to launch into a story that starts with, “Back in my day,” and Bucky turns to Becca. He crouches down next to her as the puppies come bumbling over, barking all falling onto each other in their haste to get to Bucky. He just about falls in love at the sight.

He reaches back for Steve’s hand and pulls him down so he can get in on the action. 

“Ow—oh my god.” Steve immediately picks one up and it yaps in his face until he brings it closer to his chest and it burrows into him. He looks delighted when it licks him on the chin. Of course the dog likes him. The only one who doesn’t like Steve is Bucky’s impossible-to-please father. But everyone else loves Steve, and that’s what matters.

“Come on,” Becca says, pushing one of the puppies into Bucky’s arms. “They’re not going to—oh, you know, they probably will bite, but it’ll be cute.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says and takes the puppy. It wriggles too much for him to hold it properly, so he puts it down to let it run free with its brethren. The others are making fools of themselves, in a joyful and entertaining way, except for one who puts its head on Bucky’s knee, drools, and then falls asleep.

“Have you named them yet?” Steve’s puppy is still in love with him and trying to get even closer to him than is physically possible.

“No,” Becca says, “we figure we’ll let whoever takes them name them.”

Steve turns to Bucky with a look so pitiful Bucky would give him anything he wants, and he knows it.

“Fine,” Bucky snaps, but he’s already petting the puppy on his knee, “we’ll take one.”

Steve looks at Bucky’s puppy while his own starts chewing on his hair. “We should get two.”

“_We’re not getting two puppies_,” Bucky hisses, and both Becca and Steve start laughing at him. 

Bucky is just about to relent when Becca stands. “Steve, can you look after them? Mum wants me and Bucky to help out with—shoot, I don’t even know. She started talking and I drifted off.” She pulls Bucky to his feet and out of the drawing room, Bucky shooting Steve one last look before he’s engulfed in puppies.

Becca and Bucky head through the foyer.

“I never understood why you and Steve didn’t get together,” she says, sounding awfully lofty for someone whose husband—_No_, Bucky reminds himself, he’s not doing this.

“Who says we haven’t?”

“Oh, is that why you’re so moody?”

Bucky shrugs his shoulders roughly. 

“Come on, Bucky. I’m your sister, you can tell me anyth—oh, right! She wanted wine.”

Becca changes course abruptly, pulling Bucky away from the hall and towards the wine cellar. Bucky hates that his family has a fucking wine cellar.

“Of course I can tell you anything, Becs,” he says with a sigh. He catches sight of the maids in the kitchen before Becca opens the cellar door and they descend. It’s one of the few things the Barneses didn’t upgrade over the years, and it’s creepy as hell down there, lit only by the light of the sun through a small window. Bucky sticks close and holds a basket for Becca to put wine into. 

“But you won’t,” she says. “Because you think I’d tell John.”

“Well, wouldn’t you?”

She gives him a disgusted look. “Really, Bucky?”

“If you told me something, don’t you think I’d tell Steve?”

She pauses at that, hand on a bottle of Chateau LaFite. “I suppose you’re right. But I really don’t tell John everything.” She picks up a bottle of Barbera D’Asti instead and puts it in the basket. “Is that bad of me? Oh god, that makes me terrible, right?”

Bucky feels his nature take hold as he fights not to run from any scene that makes him uncomfortable, including his sister’s meltdown that he directly caused. “No, Becs, of course not,” he lies. 

What wouldn’t he tell Steve? He would tell Steve everything, as soon as it occurred to him, because Steve is the only person Bucky has to share things with. Even as he thinks it, he looks down at his phone to see the message Steve’s sent him of himself covered in dogs. He tries to hide his smile as he glances back up at Becca.

“I think—I don’t know.” She stops in the middle of the room, wringing her hands out. “Oh, Bucky, shit!”

“What? What, Becs?” He puts the basket down and takes her hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, because she’s as much a student of George Barnes’s School Of People Who Bottle Their Feelings Up as Bucky ever was. She looks harried beneath her mountains of curls that spin in every direction. “It’s just—you’ll think it’s stupid.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“I don’t think he loves me anymore.” The way she says it, it’s like a quiet revelation that she didn’t truly feel up until it left her mouth, and a hush falls over them in the semi-darkness.

“Fuck,” Bucky says. “Well, do you still love him?”

“Not if he doesn’t love me,” she says bluntly, and Bucky barks out a laugh. “I mean—of course I do. He’s my husband.” She glances around as if to see John hiding in any corners of the room. “I don’t know,” she finishes. 

The way she sounds—so unsure of herself when once she felt the strongest desire of love, the one that led her to marry John—makes Bucky feel worse than he thought he could have coming back. And he thought his parents were the ones that were going to fuck him up. 

If Becca doesn’t love John anymore, does that mean any feelings Bucky has are only fleeting? Even the ones he’s developed for Steve? Even the ones that make him want to be a good person? Is this Bucky’s lot in life, too—to marry a man who he thinks loves him only to find out it was all a pretense? Or worse, that those feelings fade as easily as time moves?

“We should get back to the party,” Becca says, and picks up the basket. 

And Bucky lets her leave the cellar, because he’s suddenly become imbued with the kind of manic energy Steve uses to spend on a three-day art project. He follows her out of the hall and into the rotunda outside where the rest of the Barneses, John’s family, and John’s work colleagues are gathered. He immediately picks up a glass of champagne and ingratiates himself into the conversation John is having with Bucky’s uncle Peter.

“I know you Proctors love the Bears, but this is a Jets family right here,” Bucky says with a grin, and John takes a step back. “Peter, would you excuse us?”

He takes John’s arm and leads him a couple steps away, out of hearing range but not completely removed from the scene in case anyone is watching.

“Bucky,” John says, before clearing his throat. “Suppose you’ve come to tell me off about something?”

Bucky glances out over the well-manicured lawns that spread over a couple of acres of land, leading to two tennis courts, a handful of water features, and a maze. It’s a sight, at least. 

“Becca’s better off without you. We all know this. We tolerate you for her sake.”

John scoffs. “Your parents love me. I bring in seven figures a year. I brunch with senators. I play croquet with the president’s son.”

“I wasn’t talking about my family,” Bucky says, ice in his tone. “I’m talking about the people who actually care about Becca.”

John rolls his eyes, so Bucky changes tack.

“Becca really is better off without you. She makes her own money, she looks after the kids, she has all the access to your joint bank accounts. If you care about her, you’d leave her.”

John’s gaze turns mean as soon as Bucky mentions money. “Or what?” he spits.

“Or—” Bucky turns to where Simon Price is standing with his wife and gives him a wave. “I’ll fuck your boss and convince him to fire you. Don’t think he hasn’t propositioned me before.”

A look passes over John’s face that tells Bucky he already knows that. 

“And then I’ll fuck everyone else in your office and make them hate you. Then Becs would see what a snivelling, useless prick you really are, take the kids, and leave.”

John’s face has turned crimson with rage, and Bucky takes a victory sip of champagne. 

“Think about it,” he says, and hightails it out of there. On the way out, he snags another glass of champagne and plants a kiss on Becca’s cheek. “I love you, Becs. Never forget that. I’ve got places you can go with the kids—take a weekend. Have a break from all this shit.” He waves his hand around to encompass the polite but hateful chit chat. “I gotta go!”

“Bucky—” she starts, but he’s already gone.

When he gets to the drawing room, Steve’s not there. He wasn’t outside with the rest of the family, and there’s really only one place he would be, so Bucky goes upstairs and finds him.

Bucky’s room has been stripped bare of anything resembling a human personality—all his N*Sync posters went in the trash as soon as he left for college, and when he came back it was to find the rest of his stuff gone, too, as though he was slowly being erased from his parents’ life. 

Steve is lying on Bucky’s bed, just staring at the ceiling and the glow-in-the-dark stars that they tacked on there all those years ago. His shoes are neatly lined up by the foot of the bed. Bucky walks over to lean against the nearest post.

“Thor and I broke up.” Steve sniffs loudly, a disgusting, wet sound. Bucky must be so gone on him that he can’t even find it in himself to hate the noise.

“You seemed happy.”

“Yeah, but he wanted to stop seeing other people.”

Something comes loose in Bucky’s chest. “Oh, right. And you don’t want to stop seeing other people?”

“Well,” Steve says slowly, as if hoping Bucky will catch up, “it would mean I would have to stop seeing you.”

Something about being in Bucky’s childhood bedroom makes this worse. It should be a revelationary moment, but the fact is Bucky wants Steve all to himself. He’s been of the mind to sleep around as much as he wants ever since he first started having sex, and it’s never brought him anything worthwhile—no relationships, no fond memories—and now he wants something that he isn’t allowed to have.

Is this growing up? Maturing? Finally wanting to build a life for himself with someone? Is it fair to want Steve to give up everything for him, just because he wants to be monogamous?

He and Steve are moving in contradictory directions, and all Bucky wants is to go back to that first night, fucking without consequence or feelings. He wants to push Steve down and crawl on top of him and make him forget about Thor or Sharon or anyone else. He wants to make Steve want him in the worst kind of way, the needing kind of way, where Steve can’t look at anyone, can’t think about anything, can’t do anything without Bucky in his mind. 

But he can’t do that. All he can do is hand Steve the glass of champagne and say, “Come on, let’s get out of here,” and pull him away from everything he hates about his life.

“Where are we going?” Steve takes the champagne but doesn’t drink it. 

“We’re playing hooky, don’t tell mom.”

Bucky pulls him out of the bedroom and down the stairs into the hall. They get almost to the door when a voice stops Bucky in his tracks.

“James, darling.”

Steve glances between them, and Bucky nods for him to go first. “I’ll get the car,” Steve says, and heads out the door.

Bucky turns with a feeling of dread cinching his stomach, but when he faces his mother it’s with a smile. Winnifred Barnes looks the same kind of regal beauty as she has for Bucky’s entire life—years of soft towels and expensive face creams and botox injections keep her fresh-faced and young, if not a bit robotic. She has Becca’s erratic curls, and Bucky probably would too if he let his hair grow out longer. He takes in the way she stands with a commanding aura, the toughest person he’s ever known, and when she holds her arms out he goes to her. 

“I was worried you wouldn’t make it,” she says, her voice pastel soft, her hug iron strong. 

“We’re not staying.” He pulls back, after a few seconds. “Steve and I have something to do.”

“Like a desert flower blooming betwixt two oases, a miracle is fleeting and rare,” she says. Her hand comes up to cup his face, and wrinkled though her skin is it’s still as soft as ever, a perk of having servants to lift things for you. 

“Something like that,” he says with a smile for her, to match the way her eyes sparkle. “I’ll come home for the holidays.”

“Well, I look forward to that, then.” She leans forward to kiss him on the cheek in a gust of expensive perfume, and she lets him go.

He’s still reeling as he joins Steve outside while Joseph the butler brings their car around. It’s not that he hates his mother—it’s that he wants to hate her and can’t. She didn’t do anything wrong by Bucky by marrying George and having his kids, except maybe a little bit of complacency. She was always good to him, mostly. Accepted him, mostly. Taught him to stand up for himself. But no matter what happens, he’ll always be that little queer thirteen year old, desperate for approval from the person who finds him less interesting than the art that takes up her walls. 

A gay man with mommy issues? What a surprise.

Steve hands his full glass of champagne to Joseph the butler and takes the keys, settling into the front seat while Bucky ducks around the car to the passenger side. He feels keyed up just in time for the drive back to Brooklyn and the truth of the situation between him and Steve to settle in fully. 

It’s about as fun a drive back as it was there.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve clears his throat. “What I mean is, I want you.” Bucky swallows. “You want me too.” Bucky nods. “Let’s make a go of this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains sickness and hospitalisation, and the usual level of sexual content you've come to expect from my fics

The drive is fucking despairing. Bucky tells Steve what happened, and Steve sits in stony judgment the whole ride back.

Bucky wants to ask, “Are you mad at me?”, but he knows what the answer is, and he’s no longer a twelve-year-old desperate for his dad’s approval. He’s a grown-ass man. He can take whatever Steve throws at him.

When they get home, Steve drops the keys in the bowl and stares at them for a minute. Bucky watches his movements, and then his lack of movement, like a terrified rat, wondering when Steve will swoop down and sink his claws into Bucky’s soft flesh. 

“I’m going to head out,” Bucky says, reaching for his own set of keys before Steve grabs his wrist. Bucky closes his eyes against the feeling. It’s all he’s wanted, to have Steve touch him. That, Bucky thinks, is why he feels the way he does. No one else but Steve has made him feel like this.

“I like you,” Steve says, which doesn’t answer any of Bucky’s questions. Bucky opens his eyes.

“I know.” He feels trapped by the weight of Steve’s gaze as their eyes meet. 

Steve clears his throat. “What I mean is, I want you.” Bucky swallows. “You want me too.” Bucky nods. “Let’s make a go of this.”

Bucky moves in slow motion, one step at a time until he’s in front of Steve, and Steve clasps the lapels of Bucky’s coat. 

“Are you serious?” Bucky asks. Despite his height, Steve is intimidating, his gaze resolute. Bucky lives and breathes the need to please him, to be thought of highly by him, and recently, to have Steve want him. 

“Yeah, I’m serious. Never been more serious about anything.” 

The words are not much more than a breath, and then it happens all at once: Steve pulls on Bucky’s lapels and Bucky ducks down to chase Steve’s mouth, feeling Steve’s claws sinking in as he tips his head up and kisses back. Steve pushes Bucky’s coat off, and Bucky does the same to Steve’s before he pulls Bucky’s shirt out of his pants and Bucky goes for Steve’s belt. They kiss through it, Bucky still lightheaded from the champagne, and when Steve huffs in annoyance at how hard Bucky’s pants are to open, Bucky smiles and laughs, and the tension between them eases. 

Steve’s skin is so warm, and Bucky doesn’t know what it’s from. His cold, maybe? Was Steve always this warm? His breathing is laboured, probably from his asthma, but his eyes are glassy and heavy with arousal. “Let me do it,” Bucky says, and Steve steps back, undoing the buttons on his own shirt as he steps backwards towards his bedroom. “Wait,” Bucky says, his pants undone and shirt rucked up. 

“What?”

Bucky is struck by the thought of Thor fucking Steve in that bedroom. “You and Thor…”

Steve sighs, tossing his shirt into the room. “You’re going to have to get over that, Buck.”

“I know, but—can we go into mine instead?”

Steve shakes his head in disbelief. “All right, sweetheart.”

Bucky feels himself blush at the endearment, as if it’s something to blush over when he’s done much worse than be called endearing names. He steps out of his pants, throws his shirt aside, and pulls Steve into his bedroom. He doesn’t have to worry about the door anymore, because it’s Steve in his room again. He almost can’t believe he’s getting everything he wanted, when everything he wanted was only a short walk across the hall, and still so far away. He pulls Steve down onto the bed with him, being kissed by him in that frantic way that makes time speed up when he’d rather it slowed down.

He tries to set a slower pace, but Steve has ideas of his own, pushing Bucky onto his back and swinging a leg over him until he’s sitting on him, ass firmly in Bucky’s lap. Bucky feels himself grow hard at the contact, even through their underwear. 

“Is this what you want?” Steve looks proud of the mess he’s made of Bucky, his eyes wicked and mouth lifted in a smirk. He grinds down slightly and Bucky lets out an embarrassing mewling sound.

“I just want you,” Bucky says. “I don’t want to share you with anyone else.”

Steve’s smirk falters. “Buck, you can’t ask me to be someone I’m not.”

Bucky feels a lash of anger at the chasm between them that wasn’t there before. “You weren’t like this two months ago.” It’s the worst kind of accusation he can level, because the truth is that he doesn’t want Steve to change. He wants Steve to come to him when he needs help; he wants to be the guy Steve leans on. He wants things to stay in the moment when they first had sex, before all this other bullshit happened, before Thor and before Bucky’s own feelings got in the way of what should have been a casual hook-up. 

“I’ve changed,” Steve says, with a hard edge to his voice. Bucky starts to panic and sits up, gathering Steve in his arms. He’s so tiny, so fragile despite the way he carries himself and the ways the world has made him hard. He’s soft in Bucky’s arms.

“Okay, okay, let’s not talk about it.” Bucky kisses him again, trying to close the gap. “Let’s just enjoy this. Just kiss me, okay?”

Steve does, kissing Bucky like he’s got something to prove, and Bucky can’t help but be swept away by his tide. Steve’s tongue is soft and hot in his mouth, and Bucky sucks on it, pushes it back with his own, trying to give as good as he gets and somehow still ending up on the losing side. It’s worth it just to have Steve in his arms. 

Steve reaches between them to touch him, and _this_ Bucky knows. This is what he’s good at. He takes Steve’s hand and grinds it onto his own cock, tasting the gasp in Steve’s mouth as Steve feels him. Steve reaches into Bucky’s underwear and takes him in that overgrown hand of his, smearing his pre-come around as he starts to stroke. It’s not as devastating a pace as it was in Bucky’s office, and now he’s more assured of his position in Steve’s life as someone he wants to continue fucking, so he gives into whatever Steve wants.

Steve breaks off the kiss to tip his head to the side and cough, that staticky kind of cough that disrupts the mucus in his lungs. Bucky tsks like the mother hen he is. “That sounds really bad, Steve.”

Steve finishes hacking up his lungs and turns back. “I’m fine, I swear.”

“If you have pneumonia again, I’m never letting you leave the apartment.”

“I don’t have pneumonia, Buck, come on.” He kisses Bucky again as if to prove it, and Bucky would be worried about getting it too if he wasn’t so desperate for Steve’s mouth on his. 

“How’s your throat?”

“Mm,” Steve says, “Sore. Probably can’t blow you tonight, sorry, honey.”

“It’s fine. I don’t care.”

“Wanna come from my hand?”

“I don’t care,” Bucky says. “I just want whatever you wanna give me.”

Steve’s smirk comes back. “Okay, Buck.” He starts to stroke Bucky again, and it’s good—it’s better than the last time, now that Steve has learned some technique. Bucky thinks about Steve’s hand on him instead of where else those hands have been—he lets the feeling of skin on skin and Steve’s mouth on his tip him over the edge until he’s coming on Steve’s stomach and hand, breathing heavily and with sweat starting to bead on his brow. 

After a minute he looks back up. Whatever Bucky was about to say in his post-orgasm haze is knocked out of him by the way Steve’s eyes have glazed over and how pale he looks.

“Steve?”

“I’m fine, I’m—” Steve gets out of Bucky’s lap and stands up on shaky legs. “I need some water,” he says, but he only takes three steps away from the bed before he collapses.

“_Steve!_”

Bucky’s on the floor in a second, turning him over as he shivers, his breathing shallow and sharp.

“_Fuck, fuck, fuck_,” is all Bucky can manage as he elevates Steve’s head. He’s shit in an emergency. Even when they were kids, Bucky was too freaked out by the sight of blood to patch Steve up. He could be there to beat the crap out of a bully, but seeing Steve hurt always made him lose his composure.

He’s no better right now. The person most qualified to deal with this emergency is the one that it’s happening to.

Bucky does what Steve told him to do when Boof was giving birth and tries to calm his breathing while he thinks. Calling someone more qualified to deal with this is an option. Sam? Should he call Sam? Oh, right. Maybe he should _call the paramedics_. He pulls a pillow from his bed to put under Steve’s head before he rushes out to the living room, pulling at his slacks until his phone falls out.

“Call the paramedics, Bucky,” he says in a whiny voice, “that’s what you should do. Call fucking 911.”

He jams the number into his phone and skids back into the bedroom where Steve is still shivering on the floor. He spends a harried few minutes on the phone with a lovely operator who completely understands that he is losing his fucking shit and tells him to keep Steve on his side in case he throws up. Bucky even manages to clean them both up and pull on some pants before the paramedics arrive—after an excruciating amount of time—and he jumps in the ambulance with them.

Whatever happens next mostly happens in a blur. He watches a nurse push Steve into a room, he fills out some forms, and then he waits for the doctor to tell him just _what the fuck_. In the meantime, he calls Sam, who is a lot calmer than he is and is better at dealing with horrible situations after working as a trauma nurse for most of his adult life. 

Eventually, a doctor comes out to where Bucky is hovering and gives him a smile. She has a kind face, the sort of face you want to see on a doctor. 

“He’s fine.” Bucky breathes a sigh of relief. “He’s resting. We’ve given him oxygen, fluids, and some antibiotics. We’ll keep him overnight, just in case.”

Across the hall he spots Sam , who jogs over. Bucky wants to say thanks, but his throat won’t work, and as soon as Sam reaches him, Bucky bursts into tears. 

“Hey, JB, hey,” Sam says, and then, for some reason, Bucky pushes his face into Sam’s chest and Sam hugs him, which is more or less the most embarrassing part of his day. Sam and the doctor talk shop for a minute while Bucky sobs, then Sam leads him over to a couple of chairs and makes him sit down. “Hey, it’s okay. He’s fine, he’s doing good.”

“Ugh,” Bucky says, once he gets ahold of himself. “That was so fucking terrifying. I don’t know how you do it.”

Sam shrugs and gives him that Sam smile, the one with the perfect teeth and high cheekbones. “I don’t have to deal with people I love collapsing on me. You did good.” He knocks his hand against Bucky’s knee. 

“I’m just—glad he’s okay.”

“You and me both.”

Bucky gives Sam a shaky smile in return while he wipes the mess of tears and snot from his face.

“Do you want to tell me why you’re not wearing a shirt?” Sam’s expression turns into one of _I’m worried about you but I don’t know how to tell you without you having a breakdown_.

“You really don’t want to know,” Bucky says, truthfully.

“It’s a sex thing, isn’t it?”

Bucky starts laughing, and he doesn’t stop for a while.

~

Steve’s still asleep when Bucky manages to sneak into his room and away from the throng of concerned people outside. Once Nat and Clint had turned up, it was only a matter of time before Sharon and Carol did, too, and Bucky could only take so much of them pretending not to be more worried about him than they were about Steve before he had to leave. 

He takes a seat by Steve’s bed, all but collapsing onto it. Steve is still pale, still fragile, but he’s stable, judging by the bleeping heart monitor machine thing that Bucky’s seen in movies. He takes a deep breath and then lets it out.

“You scared the shit outta me, pal.”

Steve is still asleep and doesn’t respond. The wires hooked up to him, the IV, the oxygen mask—it’s scarier than Bucky wants to admit, even to himself. They haven’t been in a situation like this since Steve was a teenager, but it never gets any less scary.

“All this time I spent getting you out of scrapes, and you just can’t help yourself.”

The machine bleeps back at him.

“I called your mom. She’s flying up just to look after you. Wish I could get that kinda treatment.”

Bucky leans forward to reach out for Steve’s hand, which is cold from the hospital AC. He presses his lips to Steve’s knuckles.

“If you do anything like this to me again, your ass is grass.” Nothing. Not even a chuckle. Okay then.

~

Bucky’s woken up by a nurse pushing his feet down in order to get to Steve’s side, and he jerks so hard he almost falls off his chair. He’s used to being woken up—by his lays, by his alarm, by Steve bursting into his bedroom at 2am because of this really cool bug he saw on the window—but he’s never any less grumpy about it.

He hears hacking laughter and his mood immediately lifts. 

“Get out of the way, Buck. Important people are doing things.”

The nurse checks Steve over and asks him questions while Bucky and Steve smile at each other. It feels like they’re teens again, trying not to grin as Sarah gives them a stern talking to, because that dickhead Ryan O’Lockley had it coming anyway and they all know it. Bucky’s so happy Steve’s conscious that he can’t keep the smile off his face. 

“Did you stay here all night?” Steve asks, after the nurse leaves. 

Bucky shrugs. He’s used to doing all sorts of things for Steve; sleeping in a hospital chair isn’t a big price to pay for peace of mind. “Not the first time.”

Steve’s smile turns fond and soft. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“If you scare me like that again, Steve—”

Steve shushes him, because Bucky is close to crying again and that wouldn’t be good for either of them. “I won’t. I promise, okay?”

Bucky nods. He opens his mouth to say something else, something he should’ve said weeks ago, but Natasha, Sharon and Carol burst in with a bunch of balloons that have “It’s A Girl!” written on them, because “the ones that said ‘It’s Pneumonia’ were taken”.

So Bucky shuts his mouth and waits for the right time.

~

Sarah does come to visit Steve and spends hours making food for them in between checking Steve’s vitals and making sure he has enough pillows. She takes care not to dislodge the yorkie in Steve’s lap, who snuffles and mewls and is all-around the sweetest thing ever.

“Seriously, Ma,” Steve says from his bed-prison that he’s not allowed to leave, even if he had the energy to do more than make a toilet run every three hours. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t you ‘I’m fine’ me, Steven.” She shoves another pillow under his head—from where, Bucky doesn’t know—and helps him to sit up so that she can push hot soup into his hands. “If you’d taken care of yourself before it got so bad, I wouldn’t need to be here.”

Steve smiles his guileless smile that cracks even Sarah Rogers’s armour. “But then I wouldn’t see your beautiful face.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, but she’s grinning. She turns to Bucky, who’s taking the other half of Steve’s bed while Sarah stays in his room. “Soup for you, kid?”

“Thanks, Sarah,” Bucky says, and waits with Steve while she goes to get it. He pats Petals, scritching behind her ears while Steve looks at him with an unreadable expression. Petals is still young enough that everything she does is twice as cute as anyone else’s dog, so Bucky pays attention to her.

“You’re living the high life, aren’t you, Buck,” Steve accuses, without any venom behind it.

“Who, me?”

“Yeah, you. You get all the benefits of my mother’s cooking without having to be sick.”

Steve spits phlegm into a bucket where Bucky can see it, so Bucky doesn’t think he’s really getting any benefit out of this. “You got me,” he says, just to see Steve smile at him. 

“I know,” Steve says, and it feels much bigger than just those five words. Their moment is interrupted by another bowl of soup, but then Sarah disappears to cross-stitch and swear at the TV, and Bucky and Steve are alone again.

“I just wanted to say,” Bucky starts, while blowing on his spoon, ready to gulp it down if the moment becomes too awkward, “I really think we could be good together. As boyfriends. Because I think I’m in love with you.”

There. He’s said the words. He doesn’t even have a meltdown about them. He’s been thinking about it for a while now, even before Steve went into the hospital—and maybe he should have said them sooner, but he couldn’t articulate them. He doesn’t know what’s changed so that now he can. It took Steve going into the hospital for him to realise how badly he would hate himself if he let Steve get sick again. Maybe that’s what it took for him to realise that he loves Steve. Truly, unashamedly loves him.

“If that’s something you’re into.”

“Love?” Steve lets out a small, incredulous laugh. “If I’m ‘into’ love? Of course I’m into love, Buck. I thought you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t.” Bucky feels the need to defend himself. “Until you. I don’t know how you crawled under my skin, but you did.”

Steve knocks their elbows together because Bucky’s gaze is focused on the illustration of an owl Steve did in his freshman year at Parsons. It’s a nice owl. Very… owl-like.

“I’m very likeable.”

“Loveable,” Bucky corrects, and then he shovels hot soup into his mouth, regretting it only when it starts to burn. 

“Yeah, I love you, too.” 

They eat their soup in silence for a few minutes while Bucky digests this, trying not to freak out because he’s in love with Steve and Steve’s in love with him back. 

“But you need to apologise to Becca.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, because Steve could ask him to do cartwheels across the living room right now and Bucky would do it.

“To her face.”

“I said okay,” Bucky grumbles. Just because he’d do anything for Steve doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it. Bucky steels himself to say something that’s as equally hard as coming out to his parents, as equally hard as saying _I love you_. “If you—want to see other people, I’m fine with that. I don’t mind. Whatever you want to do.”

Steve is silent for a moment. “I think I’m good right now.”

Bucky can’t help the smile that lifts his cheeks. He glances over and catches Steve’s eye. 

“Okay,” Bucky says. He leans over and Steve gets the hint, leaning in as well until their lips catch. Nothing else matters right now. Right here, with Steve and Petals, their makeshift family of three, is the only place Bucky wants to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, gang! Thank you so much for sticking with me over the course of this ridiculous endeavour. All your comments and love really mean the most to me.
> 
> Especially thank you to my friend Nikki who betas and cheers me on, and a special special thank you to Kit for pitching in at the last minute. Happy new year! May this decade be as bountiful for you as the last year was for me.

**Author's Note:**

> please don’t use the words “dumb” or “moron/s” in your comments they are ableist and as someone who has disabilities they are quite alienating. thank you.


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